


Mikan Grove

by R_S



Category: One Piece
Genre: Blood & Sexual Injury, East Blue, F/M, Mostly Nami-Centric, Nakamaship, Pre- Grand Line, Pre-Time Skip, Sexual Slavery, Sexual Violence, Underage Sex
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-02-05
Updated: 2016-12-05
Packaged: 2018-03-10 14:10:15
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 7
Words: 26,400
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3293258
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/R_S/pseuds/R_S
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Nami's life changed when Arlong took her foster mother away from her, changed in every way. She became a thief to survive, she became a whore to survive, she became... different. She never expected to be saved, she never expected there to be any hope. She never expected the man in the straw hat.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Day of the Storm

**Author's Note:**

> I do not own One Piece, rights belong to Oda. 
> 
> **Warning: Nami Torture**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I do not own One Piece, rights belong to Oda.

Thick fingers pull back indelicately on thick red hair, snapping back the young girl’s neck with a crack that stings from the base her skull down to the tail bone. She can taste blood, because they’ve already beaten her. Rope fibers cutting into her wrists, and the pads of her fingers are sore from friction with the wooden floor. It’s dark in the cargo hold – if that’s where she is. It’s hard to tell because the only light available in the smoke hazed room is being cast by a sputtering oil lamp.

“Open up.” Gravels a disgusting voice, and she can hear him salivating before she’s suffocating.

**

“Oi, Shitheads! Breakfast!”

Nami’s eyes flutter open at the muffled voice of Sanji, followed by unmistakable slamming against the hull, and the telltale *shink of a sword being drawn. The redhead doesn’t see any of it though. Her own room is fairly well insulated, making the ruckus next door in the men’s quarters a bit more bearable.

Rolling onto her side she brings a hand up to her face, the tips of slim pale fingers touching cold sweat that had gathered there. She dreams of nothing else these days, no matter how happy and free her waking hours have become, it seems the night will never forget the past.

Nami pulls her knees up just as a light knock reverberates on the wooden door to her room. “Nami-swan~!” sings the cook, and the handle waggles as he steps smartly into her room with a tray held in one hand, a tall flute of freshly squeezed mikan juice perched at its centre.

It had become a daily ritual of sorts, that Sanji would wake her each morning. He would enter her room with a bright smile, presenting her with coffee or juice or some other form of nourishment. Ever since they had taken sail away from Cocoyashi Village it had been this way.

“Good morning,” Sanji simpered, quietly closing the door behind him as he sauntered forward.

Nami felt the mattress shift as the cook sat down beside her, presenting the offering of juice with a flourish. She extended a shaking hand to take the cool glass from him, holding it numbly just inches from her face as her breathing evened back out.

“Did you have nightmares again, my sweet Nami-san?” The cook asks gently, placing a hand on her shoulder.

Nami flinches back at his gentle touch, but only just, and Sanji removes his hand, standing back up with a bow. She didn’t answer, but she didn’t have to. They had been sailing together for weeks. From the very first day the observant cook had understood that she was broken, damaged, fragile – reinforcing his opinion of treating women with the greatest respect and tenderness possible. But she never told him anything about the ‘nightmares’ that plagued her. Never. Not one word.

Without any further exchange, Sanji excuses himself and returns to the deck. He was needed in the kitchen to serve breakfast, because if he didn’t their captain would be the only one to have a decent meal.

Nami took a sip of juice, licking her lips for the sweet zest slipping over her tongue. “Bell’mere-san.” She breathed.

**

When Nami finally dredged up the courage to go topside and enter the kitchen, Zoro and Usopp were busy protecting their plates from an over-enthusiastic Luffy. The Strawhat captain’s cheeks bulging with sausage and eggs, a bit of ham speared on the end of his fork.

“Nami!” The blinding smile of her captain was so infectious that it tugged at the sides of her lips, and she could not help giggle at Zoro’s red face, or Usopp shoving an entire bagel into his mouth – nearly choking before he groped for the jug of milk in the middle of the table.

“Nami-swan.” Sanji simpered, dancing towards her with a beautiful plate of toast, eggs, ham and waffles. She takes the plate, avoiding the hearts blooming in the blonde’s eyes. She really wished he wouldn’t…

“Are we going to the Grand Line today?” Luffy asked excitedly, as he had been doing every morning since they had taken sail from Nami’s hometown.

She sighed. “No, Luffy. I told you, we will be stopping first at the port town before Reverse Mountain.”

“Loguetown, right?” Zoro groused, swallowing his mouthful of food before casting a menacingly feral eye over at his captain, his fork held in one hand at the ready to spear the first rubbery hand to make another snatch at his precious food.

“That’s right.” Nami nodded, taking a bite of egg. Her elbows rested on either side of her plate, though there was no real need. Luffy seemed, almost unconsciously, to have decided that she was the only one he would not steal food from. Maybe it had something to do with the threat on his life if Nami were to ever not smile. Something that Usopp had pointed out to the rubber man, but had not received more of an answer for than a shrug of twitchy shoulders from Luffy.

“We need to buy supplies there before we start out to the Grand Line.” Mused Nami, thinking hard about the funds available to her. She had stolen dozens of wallets and purses upon their departure from Cocoyashi, but after she had tallied up all the cash and coins, it only amounted to about three thousand beli. She regretted leaving the hundred million beli behind – though with the thoughts of Nojiko and Genzo, Dr. Nako, and everyone else – she could not bring herself to actually wish she had brought it with her.

Usopp pushed himself from the table, still chewing the remainder of the food he had eaten too fast. “Damn right, we do!” he announced, striking a ridiculous pose so that his long nose pointed straight up into the air. “It won’t be easy to become a brave warrior of the sea!”

“Yutz.” Sanji groused.

“What was that!”

“Can’t we just pick up things as we go?” Luffy whined, flattening himself down on the tabletop beside his empty plate – so empty that it actually sparkled.

“No.” Nami shook her head. “We don’t know anything about the islands in the Grand Line. What if we got there and there wasn’t anther port for months? I’ve heard a lot about pirates, even merchants, who starved to death before they found provisions, or worse.”

“Don’t worry, sweet Nami-san.” Sanji bowed at her shoulder, and she felt the brush of his blonde hair against her arm, making her shiver. “I’ll keep these assholes in line!”

Sanji didn’t notice Nami’s averted eyes, or the quiver of her lower lip even as she smiled. But Luffy did. From where he had his chin in his arms across the table, he saw the forced expression – and he didn’t like it.

**

“Land-ho!” Usopp’s hearty wail rippled down to the deck where Zoro was busy polishing his katana. Luffy had been leaning up against him, pestering the green haired man to play tag with little success. But at the prospect of a new island he perked up, bouncing to his feet and rocketing himself atop Merry’s figurehead to enjoy the tilt and sway of the sea as it brought him closer to a new and exciting adventure.

Nami stood on the upper deck near the galley door, eyes cast out over the slight swells tinted with blue and seaweed green. The sky was clear, little white wisps of innocent cloud drifting by on a warm and tranquil wind. Land. She thought about her funds, and the needs of the crew. They’d spend three thousand beli just on meat – the way their captain eats. Zoro needed two swords that had mysteriously gone missing after she had stolen the ship. Sanji had been making noise of a locking fridge, and Usopp wouldn’t stop going on and on about all the little things he needed for his tinkering and inventing of new weapons – not to mention goggles. A sniper needed goggles, and they would cost.

Nami let out a shuddering sigh that was immediately lost on the free air before she set her jaw tightly.

Usopp slid down the rigging at her side, rubbing his hands together. “We’re getting closer!” he crowed, punching the air.

“Usopp.” Nami said, and her voice was so quiet that it made the coward's back stiffen, turning his face towards her stretched in mortal fear.

“Nami?”

“Do you have any money to buy what you need?” she asked. On the deck below Zoro had come up to Luffy, poking the rubber man in the back as he fantasized about all the things they could see and do on the island where the Pirate King had lived and died.

“Ah, well…” The liar looked uncomfortable, shifting in his dirty green boots. “I have a bit, a little over a thousand beli.”

“You’ll need more than that.” Nami said, reaching into her pockets to extract the wads of bills she had stowed away next to her skin. She kept money close that way. “Here.”

Usopp gulped as she handed him a thousand beli, and he just held it under his nose as if he had never seen anything like it. “Nami?”

“Don’t say anything.” The redhead growled. “Just take it, get the things you need.”

Usopp watched as she turned on her heels, making for the lower deck as Merry bobbed and broke over gentle swells.

“Oi, Long Nose.” A very unmanly yelp of surprise escaped the Strawhat sniper before he turned to find Sanji right behind him, flicking his lighter under the white shaft of a cigarette.

“Sanji!” Usopp still had the wad of beli’s in his hand, the edges of them fluttering in the wind.

**

Disembarking at the peer was punctuated by a fee, which aggravated Nami, because it was just too much, a hundred beli a day!? And they would be there for two days… She paid it, because there was little choice if they wanted to get any shopping done.

“There are a few things I need to buy.” Zoro was contemplating as Luffy took off down the street on his own.

“Oh~?” Nami smiled sweetly, “And how would you be affording that? You don’t have any money, do you?”

Zoro was so easy to manipulate with money, mostly because he was somehow just as bad at haggling as he was at finding his bearings. Two things that Nami excelled at. In the end she had lent him a thousand beli, which the promise that he would pay her back three thousand. A sweet a deal as ever she’d seen one.

“Greedy sea witch.” Grumbled the swordsman before stalking away down the cobbled streets. Usopp had been trying to decide if he would just give Nami back the thousand beli she had given him – given him – mind, because she had not tried to extort anything additional out of him for it.

“Would you care to accompany me today, Nami-swan?” Sanji bowed at her side, taking her slender hand gently in his own.

Nami allowed the cook to caress her hand with his own smooth fingers. He had the softest hands she had ever felt belonging to a man. “No, you go ahead.” She said, slipping free of his touch and striding forward. She soon lost them in the crowd as she peered into clothing shops and bookstores. She needed things… mostly because she hadn’t brought much with her from Cocoyashi. Only a photograph of her late foster mother, a few clothes, and a handful of stolen purses.

“Work?”

“Just for one evening.” Nami reiterated, face to face with a tall woman behind the counter. Two heavily penciled eyebrows lifted up almost to her equally decorated hairline. She had the reddest of lipsticks on, accentuating a mouth that had doubtless sucked more cock than even Nami.

“Short of cash?” the woman simpered, reaching for a thick register and turning pages.

Nami put her elbow on the counter and placed her chin in it. “You could say that.” She sighed.

“You’re experience?”

“I’m very good.”

“Are you?” Heavily mascaraed eyes lifted almost hungrily onto the Strawhat navigator, a slight slant to their gaze that told Nami more of the establishment than she wanted to know. How this kind of work had taught her to understand it.

“You may be assured of that.”

Not five minutes later Nami found herself in a room decorated with red. Red linens on the bed, red curtains on the walls and over the posters. The walls painted crimson, even the wooden furniture looked like blood, a shockingly bright red carpet under her pale feet. She had been obliged to wear a white robe tied with a belt at her waist, low cut so that her breasts peeked out almost entirely, just shy of the darker skin of her areolas. Her fingers twitched a little as she applied make up, dark red, like everything else. Blush and lipstick next. She looked the part, magnificently, she had to admit. Well, she knew what she was doing.

Before she had even closed the lid of the powder there was a knock on the door and the woman who had hired her came in, followed by not one, but three large men that smelled like cheap gunpowder and salty sweat. The leers on their faces told her they were no strangers here, and that the matron had informed them of her ‘talents’.

**

Sanji’s triumph at the cooking contest he had stumbled upon buoyed his ego to the point of grinning like an idiot. The cart behind him rattling on the cobbles under its treasure of elephant tuna. He had never seen one before, outside of the books he had studied as a child. He couldn’t wait to cook it – how the parts of it might work best in soup, or the bones to be ground up into savory sauces, or the fillets placed over rice or noodles or collard greens.

He was just debating in his mind how best to cook the wide flat ears when he ran into Usopp, carrying a bag twice his size and stuffed full of all sorts of things that didn’t seem to go together at all.

“Oi, Sanji!” the sniper hailed him, adjusting the goggles he had purched up on top of his head.

“Looks like you got just everything.” Sanji chuckled, observing how the coward had to stagger under the weight of all that ‘stuff’.

“Got them! Everything necessary to become a brave warrior of the sea!!”

Sanji smirked, reminded of Luffy’s constant proclamations of being Pirate King. “How’d you afford all this?” he asked, bending to pick up a forked sling-shot that had fallen out of the long nosed man’s bag.

“Ah, well…” Usopp looked uncomfortably up and down the street. “I had some money, but borrowed a bit more from Nami.”

“Nami?” Sanji smirked. “You’ll be paying that back for the rest of your life, you know.”

“Ah.” Usopp sniffed.

“Oi!” Zoro had come up the street behind the two, a couple more katana than he had before sticking out of his belt. “You guys seen Him?”

**

Unwashed, filthy, disgusting. Three words Nami has come to associate with each and every experience she’s ever had with cock shoved unceremoniously into her mouth. She gags as the head connects with the back of her throat, because no matter how many times she’s been made to swallow one down, she’s never been able to stop that particular reflex.

“Come on, suck, bitch.” The low graveling voice urged, fisting a handful of red hair and tugging back. The man’s two companions just behind the standing man as she’s kneeling on the ground.

She can already feel the carpet fibers rubbing burns into her knees.

“She got good tongue, boss?” breathed one of them, and Nami heard the heavy flap of his fist as he rubbed himself standing.

“Could be better.” The man with his dick down her throat said scathingly.

Not a moment later and he’s pulled himself out, craning her head back to take in the next man’s cock, and this one smells even worse. It takes all of her concentration to keep her teeth shielded with her lips as her neck cracks and another set of searing pains trail down to her chest. The second man’s hips buck forward, driving his length down her throat and all the air is trapped inside her lungs, no way for it to escape.

“You better be worth the price.” The third man scoffs, a hand finding its way to her left breast to give it a squeeze, much alike a herder would feel up a piece of meat of an animal. “Breasts are good though, perky as shit, eh, Boss?”

“Ah!” the second man drags back, and Nami’s lips part to let out a cough and a bit of spit and bile. She gasps, but they’ve just begun. There is no rest for a whore. She deserves this, after all. The slut that she is.

Rough hands clamp down on her hips, lifting her non-to-gently to stand on shaking legs before she’s shoves backwards to flop on the mattress. Her head snaps back and she’s seeing white stars behind her eyelids before she’s set upon. Two sets of teeth clamp down on each one of her breasts, biting at her nipples so that they feel they are on fire. She holds back a sound of pain, because that is only encouragement to these kinds of fuckers. The third lifts her knees before pressing them open unceremoniously. A hot breath ghosting close to her inner thigh before a calloused finger presses into her pussy, pushing her open from the inside.

“Nice and tight.” Nami hears the man groan before he’s inserted another finger, spreading her open to admire the dark red flush of her insides. The pressure gathers as he stretches her open, enough that she fears she might tear. The other two start to pinch at her belly and arms, one reaches down to add one of his own fingers to the two that are working her open, reaching so deeply inside that her belly twitches with the sensation.

“We’re gonna fuck you raw, whore.”

Nami’s back arches when a tongue comes down to lick a hot line across her clitoris, raking teeth over the sensitive bud and the fingers start moving with malice. Her legs convulse, and a knee is draped over to keep her from protecting herself from the onslaught.

“Keep em open, bitch.”

“Nnnah!” She cannot help the sound, but knows this sound is okay. Keeping quiet only makes it worse.

“Damn, Boss, she’s already this juicy.” The ‘Boss’ chuckles darkly, another long lick of a roughened tongue across her clit and she’s moaning again. Not that it feels good, it feels like sex, and sex isn’t a good thing.

The teeth are withdrawn from her nipples to be replaced by fingers, twisting and tugging until she can feel the skin of her breasts stretching out, rotating under their violence and she can already feel the bruising begin.

“Fuck.” Breaths one of them in her ear, his teeth on her neck until it splits and a fine trickle of warmth slides across her shoulder.

“Com’mon, Boss, get her over already.”

The fingers inside of her wriggle and scratch inside, giving one last pull before they leave her and she takes in a breath before she’s turned over onto her belly and lifted up by her hair. Nami obediently gets to her hands and knees, fighting the tears threatening to fall from her eyes. Her neck freely bleeding, but she has no time to consider that, because there’s cock in her mouth again, course dark pubic hair shoved under her nose as she’s choked again, the hot phallus sliding down her throat and she’s not able to stop the droll dribbling down her chin.

“Got a nice ass~” One long lick slides wetly over Nami’s asshole, sending a trembling shiver to rush up her back as her mouth is fucked. “Taste that ass!” laughs the ‘Boss’. “Gonna be sweet tonight!”

They spit on her hole, the two who are not the one fucking her throat, and she’s shifted into a kneeling position on the bed. The man with his dick in her mouth reaches to pinch her nose shut so that she’s forced to try and take in air through her mouth, but there’s no room around the foul smelling cock fully shunted in place. The man groans with the sensation and nearly suffocates her before he releases and Nami’s nostrils flair for oxygen.

There’s hands on her ass and stomach, the heat from two bodies on either side before there’s a press against her pussy. The shove inside spreads her lips wide, her natural lubricant the only thing saving her from splitting apart.

“Oh, fuck!” gasps the man as he bucks into her, dislodging the other from her mouth. The hand fisted in her hair rakes back, pointing her face upwards to enable his hardness to hit her on one cheek and then the other, spreading spit and pre-cum as he slaps her, rubbing his head on her lips and chin.

“Take your time, fuckers.” The Boss groans, his hands squeezing bruisingly hard into the flesh of Nami’s ass, spreading her cheeks apart. She feels the head of the Boss’ cock on her hole for maybe a half-second before he’s pushing inside with no preparation whatsoever. Her body convulses an she cannot stop the cry of sharpness that escapes her lips.

“Nice and tight. Fuck yes.” The Boss slides home, sliding his member up into her until his filthy balls slap, and he’s got his hands hooked around each hipbone. “Good little cum-slut whore.” He grinds his hips forward, pulling out almost completely before thrusting in with force that makes her tailbone sting. “Take it, bitch.”

**

“How the hell do you get into these situations?!” Zoro asks exasperatedly as he, Sanji, and Luffy run up the cobbled lane away from the main square where a fight had broken out between both pirates and marines. Usopp had been abandoned early on with all their baggage to get back to the ship. Where Nami was, none of them knew.

“I just wanted to see the execution platform.” Luffy pouted, hands behind his head as they ran.

**

“Ah, fuck, fucking tight!”

Nami’s cervix was screaming, pussy and ass filled with too much cock, lips wet with spit around a third. The men’s hands busied with spanking her ass, raising red-purple welts before the sensation goes numb and they’re just beating her. She’s long since stopped caring what kind of sounds she’s making, because they don’t seem to care, and the sounds of pain seem to be more preferable to them anyway.

“Gonna come, Boss.” The man in Nami’s mouth grinds out, bucking forward and curling over the top of her.

“Go ahead,” the man in her ass pants, “Getting there myself.”

“Good little fuck-dolly.” The man in her pussy drags out and rams back in, making her stomach roll over and over and she feels like she just might vomit.

“Take it down!” suddenly her mouth is filled with stinking cock, both the man’s hands on her throat as he presses her windpipe closed around his head, the short thrusts down her constricted trachea hurt, like she’s being penetrated with rock, and just as she’s certain she’ll pass out from lack of oxygen the man releases the pressure, shooting hot semen down her throat and into her belly without the need for her to consciously swallow. Tears are falling from her eyes as the man rears and moans. As he comes down his hand flies back, a resounding slap echoing around the red room and the cock slips out from between her lips.

“Ah, fuck!” the Boss pants, pounding into Nami’s ass with renewed vigor. “Again!” he growls, teeth clamping down on the sensitive juncture of her neck and back.

The spent man throws back the other hand, the blow landing on her opposite cheek and sending her neck snapping the other direction.

“Again!” echoes encouragement from the man filling her pussy, the throbbing heat stabbing at her belly from the inside.

Another slap, and now the next, and the next. Her belly burns and her legs shiver when she feels the spill of the man into her pussy. He’s still sheathed inside of her as she’s beaten, both hands coming up to grasp her nipples and pull painfully outward.

“How you doing, Boss?”

“Fuck! Do it harder!”

Harder, harder, the slaps coming within seconds of each other until there are actual whimpers slipping from between Nami’s numbing lips. Her ass is on fire, but the Boss is not done. One hand like a vice on her left hip, the other reaching around to pinch tight to her clitoris, rolling her tender womanhood between rough fingers, using his nails to rake a hot pain across it and she’s screaming.

“Come, bitch, I’ll know if you don’t!”

Nami’s eyes fly wide as another slap sends her lip trembling, splitting and bleeding. The now limp member falling out of her to be replaced by three fingers twisting and turning, reaching and ripping into her until she’s seeing stars and her nipples protest the pain, but it’s pain, and a pain she’s felt before.

Her ass is smacked hard and clenched between hard fingers as she comes, her legs giving out and she’s pressed between the three bodies that have so completely used her. The Boss gives another vicious drag backwards before driving into her with the strength of a bull in heat, and she feels his come inside, shooting hot acid up her spine and into her very brain.

Laughing and chuckling, high-fiving their conquest, the three men spit one last time over Nami’s back before they take up their clothes and leave the way they came.

**

“The hell, Luffy?” Usopp’s smacked Luffy upside the head when he finally manages to make it back to Merry with Zoro and Sanji. “That was too close!”

“Shi shi shi shi~” Luffy’s high laughter echoes on the air despite the storm surrounding them. “It’s fine!” He laughed, looking around the ship. “Where’s Nami?”

**

“As promised, fifty thousand beli.”

Nami’s takes the stack of beli notes from the painted fuck-house manager. She would call it a brothel, but brothels tend to avoid jobs that damage their ‘goods’. Something this place obviously had no problem with.

“A pleasure doing business with you.” The redhead says, her voice scratchy from having done her job to well. The painted woman smiles a knowing smile. She’d probably seen many like Nami, in town for a short time, looking for fast cash. Such was the life she led, and had led ever since that day.


	2. Please Don't Cry

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I do not own One Piece, rights belong to Oda.

When Nami left the establishment she was greeted with the sharp scent of post-storm rain. The streets were swimming, and it looked like a big wind had come through. Umbrellas were bent backwards, chairs and trash bins and crates all piled up against buildings, and a complete lack of people who had undoubtedly taken shelter during the gale. 

“Damn you, Dragon!” a man was shouting. Nami could see him, tall and muscular man with a shock of grey hair slicked back over a thick neck, smoking two cigars as he shook his fist at an equally large man, if not larger. 

“Nahahaa!” laughed the other man, wearing a dark green robe that covered him from head to foot. Only his hands were visible, looking far too large for his body. “What reason is there to stop a man from sailing?” He crowed into the after-storm quiet. 

Nami left the two men to their apparent argument and began her slow walk back to the docks. She didn’t feel like shopping, or eating, or anything besides just crawling into her soft bed on the Going Merry. 

It was quite a shock, to say the very least, when she found the little caravel with the sheep’s head figurehead gone from the peer. She was certain of where they had docked, certain she had paid the fee just there, at that little white building just shy of those lines of storerooms! Why was Merry not there?! 

“Are you lost?” 

It took Nami a few moments, in her panic, to notice the dark haired woman in glasses speaking to her. She turned glassy eyes onto the woman, taking in her blue jacket and green-hilted katana. She thought of Zoro, how he would always, ALWAYS be getting lost… and now she was, and her eyes filled with tears. 

She allowed her backpack to drop to the ground, along with her knees. She put her face in her hands and cried, letting the pitch of her wails echo on the damp air. 

Tashigi knelt beside the distraught redhead, pulling her into her arms and felt her shiver. “It’s okay.” She said, because she honestly could think of nothing else to say. 

**

Sanji ran up and down the lanes of the city, trying like hell to avoid the marines that were still patrolling because they were surely to recognize him in his suit and blond hair – blonde hair always gave him away because blonde hair was so rare in East Blue. If he had been back home in North Blue he’d be fine – just another golden haired brat in the crowd, but not here. 

His eyes snapped up as he neared the docks, a couple of women, one had dark hair, the other – a redhead! Sighing in relief he sped up, black shoes tapping on the cobbles. He was halfway to calling out when he recognized the katana strapped to the dark haired woman’s hip. It was the woman who had fought with Zoro. She’d recognize him, he was sure of it. Nearly falling flat on his face in his hurry to divert, he dove into a dark alley not ten yards from them. 

“It’s okay.” He heard the woman say, and it was with a much softer sounding voice than he had heard before. 

“Th-they left me!” 

Nami. Sanji’s heart turned over. That was Nami’s strangled voice!

“Who left you? Your family?” 

“My – I – oh, God!!” 

He couldn’t take this, he couldn’t. Nami should never sound like that, never. Squaring his shoulders he stepped out from the alley towards the two women huddled together in the street. He knew this was suicide, knew he was damn well going to get caught, but he couldn’t let Nami think she had been abandoned. Not his sweet mellorine.

Tashigi was kneeling with Nami in her arms, rubbing small circles on her back as she wondered what to do. She had no idea who this woman was, or where she came from. She didn’t recognize her as one of the locals, though she had only been stationed in Loguetown for a short time. She didn’t have much time to waste either. Roronoa Zoro had gotten away. She needed to join the pursuit or she’d be denied vengeance. 

“Excuse me, madam.” 

Her bespectacled eyes turned to a man in a crisp suit with blond hair, gold watch chain dangling from his hip. She knew him. 

“You!” 

“Sanji!” Nami cried, arms immediately detangling from the marine to clutch at the cook’s black trousers. “S-San-ji!” 

Tashigi’s angry scowl turned at once, slacking to bewilderment when the Strawhat cook bent himself over the distraught redhead, pulling her into his arms as she shivered and sobbed. Sanji just looked back at her, expressionless, waiting for her to do whatever it was her ‘justice’ would allow.  
Her heart hammered in her chest at the look he gave her, even though she could only see one of his shockingly blue eyes. His hands were slender and pale, gripping to the redhead’s back with a soft pressure, passing palms over her madness as if he were ironing a shirt. They shared a moment of silent explanation, and in that moment she felt utterly and completely defeated. 

He pulled the barely lit cigarette from his lips and tossed it aside into a puddle. “Thank you.” Sanji muttered, pulling Nami into his arms and turning. “I’m sure we’ll meet again.” He said as he slowly began to pace back to the opposite dock where Merry and the others were waiting. 

**

The Strawhat crew did not have a doctor, something that Luffy was constantly being reminded of – largely due to Zoro – but when Sanji made his way towards the ship with Nami held in his arms like that… and he saw the blood on her neck and tears streaming down her face… 

“Here.” Usopp stepped forward to lend Sanji some support on the rickety gang plank. The long nosed man’s eyes never leaving the young woman as Sanji mutely accepted his assistance. 

Zoro was quiet at Luffy’s side, eyes wide and staring. Sanji nodded to his captain before carrying Nami to the galley and laying her down on the sacks of flower they kept along one wall under the spare, folded up sail. Usopp ran to get alcohol and bandages from below decks as Sanji carded a soft touch through Nami’s fiery hair. She shivered at feel of his fingers against her scalp, but did not complain. Luffy’s hands had balled into fists, his teeth grinding together loud enough for his first mate to hear. 

“Easy.” Zoro warned, a hand on the small of Luffy’s tensed back. 

Luffy had felt angry before, so it was not new to him, but the churning ache in his stomach – the pit of guilt that tore him apart from the inside – He had not felt that for a very – very long time. Usopp came back in with bandages, which Zoro took from the sniper and made his way to Nami’s side. 

“Out of the way, Ero-cook.” He sniped at the blonde, kicking him in the side until Sanji consented and went to stand with Luffy and Usopp by the kitchen table. It wasn’t a very large room, but it felt miles from where the green haired man knelt over their navigator. Luffy didn’t exchange any kind of communication with Sanji or Usopp, but rather stood stock still, fists all white knuckles. He didn’t even blink as Zoro began to peel back Nami’s shirt to examine the source of her bleeding. 

**

Nami had allowed Sanji to run lithe fingers through her hair, even though it made her belly clench tight, still churning from the cum she had been forced to swallow not an hour before. Her back ached and her knees protested lying flatly like that. She wanted to turn and roll herself into a ball. The side of her neck was on fire, and every small movement of the air spoke torments across her skin. 

“Out of the way, Ero-cook.” The low growl she recognized as Zoro’s voice, and soon Sanji was gone and the broad-shouldered swordsman was kneeling over her, reaching for her shirt. Nami whimpered and tried to turn away, but he held onto her opposite shoulder and just waited. “Nami, it’s okay.” 

“Ha-ha…” it was the most opposite of a laugh that Zoro had ever heard – ever. A sound that ripped out of her throat like a tear in Merry’s sails, and his chest constricted slightly. 

“What happened to you?” Zoro asked, careful to keep his voice low as he reached for the collar of her shirt. 

She didn’t say a word as the swordsman pulled back the bloodied fabric, and for a man having thick calloused fingers, he worked deftly, taking great care not to touch her skin if he didn’t need to. The bite mark slapped him in the face. Any fucking idiot would know that was what it was. He frowned as he took hold of the collar and ripped at the material. The shirt was ruined by blood anyway. 

“Don’t tell Luffy.” Nami gasped as he knelt for a clean rag and the bottle of disinfectant. 

Zoro’s fingers slipped on the cap, and he swallowed hard. “Don’t think it’s a good idea to keep things from the captain.” He murmured, soaking the rag and beginning to mop up the blood carefully along the deep impressions left by human teeth. 

Nami hissed for the action, but he knew she would. Bites were always bad, but human bites were worse – they got infected more than most of the time, and they took forever to heal – and they left scares. It was then that Zoro noticed several white ghosts on Nami’s neck, down her collarbones and just above her tattoo. Other… marks… 

“Nami.” Zoro whispered, leaning close to her ear to be completely sure none of the rest of the crew could hear. “Don’t hide things from us.” 

Tears fell from her eyes, but she said nothing. She bit her lip, bit hard, and a new trickle of red slipped between the creases of her lips and down her cheek. Zoro’s frown deepened as he bent to lick at the little trickle. Nami felt the warmth of his tongue on her skin and she shivered, but allowed the action. After that Zoro said nothing, just wiped her neck clean as gently as he could before beginning to suture the larger of puncture tears. Nami permitted her eyes to close. She was safe. She could admit she was safe, because Zoro would never hurt her, Luffy would never hurt her…. Sanji, Usopp… They were Nakama, and she was on Merry. She was safe. 

**

Elated as everyone had been to finally enter the Grand Line after having listened to Luffy go on and on about it for almost two months, none of them, including the captain, felt like rushing Nami into navigating the legendary current that would take them up and over Reverse Mountain.  
Sanji, who had often traveled in these more southerly waters west of the Baratie, had decided on visiting an out-of-the-way island that was situated so near the calm belt that Sea Kings were often sighted on the horizon. There was no town on the little green rock nestled between two outstretched arms of coral reef, but that hardly mattered. The anchor was let down onto a white-sandy beach flanked by fruited palms and luscious fern. Tufts of tall grass with little purple and pink flowers on long spires dotted the beach, along with shells and crabs crawling into little pools. The air was warm, a light breeze softly moving Merry’s sails before Usopp pulled them up to tether them to the mast. 

“Some place, eh?” The sniper sighed, shielding his eyes from the noon-day sun that sparkled across crystalline water. 

“Old man used to go on and on about this place.” Sanji sighed nostalgically, taking a long drag from his cigarette as waves lapped against the hull with their blue lullaby. “The best place in all of East Blue to find blue finned pristigenys.” 

Lowering his hand, Usopp shuddered. “Can you even eat those?” 

The sea-faring cook laughed. 

**

Luffy should have been up on Merry’s figurehead. He should have been twitchy and excited and grinning from ear to ear, unable to contain himself for one second longer – and now that they had made landfall, he certainly should have been bouncing around the beach making sandcastles or swinging from one palm to the next like the rubbery monkey that he is.  
What Luffy should not have been was curled up in the storeroom next to Nami’s door with his hat pulled down over his face. 

Zoro came out of the bath running a towel through his green hair. He was already dressed, three katana secured to his hip with his left arm draped protectively over them – or maybe it was comfort. He let out an audible sigh when he saw Luffy sandwiched between the wall and a wine barrel. “Everything alright, Captain?” he asked, already knowing damn well that nothing was alright. 

“Hmm.” Was the response Luffy provided. It had been near to the only thing he’d said since they had left Loguetown two days ago.

Zoro finished drying his hair, laying the towel out to dry over a stack of crates before pressing a hand down on top of Luffy’s head. After a moment he exhaled, squared his shoulders, and made for Nami’s bedroom. Out of respect for Nami’s privacy, and obvious injury, only Zoro had been allowed into her room, something Sanji had been more than vocal about – indignant that the Moss Brain was allowed to enter his lovely mellorine’s room. The conversation did not last long, however, when Luffy had spoken up in the kitchen to ask Nami if that was what she wanted. Her wordless nod and new flow of tears down her cheek had been all the answer he needed, his look at the cook enough to naysay any further objection.  
Nami had curled up into her bed that night. Had not accepted dinner, and the next day she did not eat anything but tangerines from her mikan grove. Today, she sat up in bed, her end table littered with curly rinds, and the room smelled of fresh zest. Zoro noticed that she must have gotten up to open the porthole window, because a light breeze was flitting about the room, a soft warm light with it. 

“How are you feeling?” Zoro asked, closing the door quietly behind him. 

Nami smiled, and though it was a little forced, the swordsman considered that it was leaps and bounds of improvement from what it had been. Crossing to her beside, Zoro knelt and slowly untapped the plaster from the woman’s neck, revealing sutured teeth marks and a yellow-green bruise that was larger than it had been the day before. Improvement. The bite had not gotten infected, and Zoro was convinced today that it would not be, and dipped a rag into the mixture of half alcohol half warm water to slowly wipe the site before he would wait a few minutes for it to air dry. It were these halted minutes when there was nothing for his hands to do that he dreaded, because it left him and Nami in an uncomfortable silence wherein Zoro wanted to demand an answer of how she had been injured, and stony silence where Nami would bite her lips and seem to pray that he would just give up asking. The compromise between them was to remain quiet on either end. 

“We’ve reached an island?” Nami asked, her voice quiet and small. It didn’t sound right to Zoro at all. 

“Our Swirly Cook picked it.” He told her, leaning in to check that the reddened skin was holding the sutures well, and the level of moisture still left on her skin. “Usopp and Luffy will probably want a fire, and a barbeque. There’s nobody living here, so we’ve got the place to ourselves.” He babbled, not wanting the silence to descend again. 

“I’m sorry.” Nami breathed, her faced turned away. 

Zoro frowned, reaching for fresh bandaging and beginning to secure it. “Don’t say things like that, damn Sea Witch.” 

**

Zoro, Sanji, and Usopp spent most of the afternoon unloading barrels of wine and food and blankets, all sorts of things to keep themselves busy. Luffy had not joined them in setting up – something that to date had not occurred. That the rubbery shit would still be on board and not exploring with sparkling eyes at every turn was unnerving. 

“So, Mossy, you going to tell us what happened to Nami-san?” 

“No.” 

“Why the hell not?” 

“Because it’s none of your business, Dart Brow.” 

“Marimo!” 

“Oi-oi!” Usopp ducked a vicious kick aimed at the swordsman, nearly dropping his catch of wire racks they would later be using as an impromptu grill. 

“And while we’re on the subject!” Sanji groused, lighting a cigarette while Usopp took himself away from any impending swordsman-cook related confrontations. “Why are only you allowed to see her, heh?” 

“Because I was the one dressing her wounds?” Zoro shrugged. “You can stitch her up next time.” 

“Stitches?” 

“Yea, I think I put in ten, maybe twelve.” 

“Nami-swan.” Sanji gasped, hand over his chest. “When I find out who did this…”

“You won’t.” Zoro said, staring over the ocean. There was a Sea King on the horizon, bright purple striped with black with yellow eyes. It swiveled above the blue surf as if looking for something, and then it was gone. 

**

Nami stood naked in front of the mirror in her room. Her neck bandaged, but the rest of her bare. Bruises stared back at her, angry red and purple, some faded to yellow or sickly looking green with bluish fringes. Her breasts were the worst, red marks from where she had been cruelly pinched and bitten. There were teeth marks on her ribs and inner thighs, but thank goodness there was no other broken skin… at least not on the surface.  
She had not eaten anything for good reason, not after the violation of her rectum. The tears that she had felt there would be slow to heal, and she did not want to exacerbate the problem with the need to relieve herself. Nami had just lifted her hand to touch lightly at the swollen red bud of one tender nipple when there was a soft knock on her door. 

She drew her robe tight around her in less than a heartbeat. “Yes?” she gasped. 

“It’s me.” Luffy’s voice made its way through the wooden door, sober sounding and quiet. She had rarely heard him like that, only a handful of times – like when he chose to speak to Shushu, or when Zoro was carried unconscious to Dr. Nako’s infirmary after the battle with Arlong’s crew. “Can I come in, Nami?” 

**

Luffy could hear his blood rushing in his ears, acrid taste in his mouth, but he didn’t raise his eyes. Not when Zoro left Nami’s room and went out onto the deck, not as Sanji and Usopp started making trips to begin setting up for their night together on the beach… The fact that they had made landfall had only made a small subtitle in his mind. The larger taken up by his injured nakama. A ringing in his ears that sounded like Shanks’ declaration “I will not forgive anyone who hurts one of my nakama!” 

Numbly, Luffy sands up and turns towards Nami’s door, knuckles wrapping against it before he could convince himself to stop. 

“Yes?” 

“It’s me.” His voice didn’t sound right, even to himself. Luffy’s tongue dry, sweat beading on his forehead as a long silence punched him repeatedly in the guts. “Can I come in, Nami?”

Silence pressed in on his ears like a hot wetness of falling into a boiling sea. A strong desire to run from the door overwhelming to the point of his left sandaled foot sliding back. But he screwed up his face, eyes clamping shut and just waiting… He had not expected Nami to come to the door, or the downturn of her orangey eyes as she stepped aside to let him in.  
Nami was shorter than Luffy by an inch, maybe two, the slump of her head and shoulders accentuating their height difference. Once the captain had made his way inside, Nami retreated to stand near the porthole window, letting the light breeze tickle the ends of her red hair over the bandage just beneath. Luffy stared at the clean plaster, neatly taped so that it did not shift or pull. Zoro knew how to dress wounds on others much better than he ever did on himself, it seems.  
Luffy closed the door behind him, noticing how the slight sound of the knob catching sent a tremor through Nami’s body. She clutched at her robe, fabric fisted in both hands. Luffy didn’t like this, didn’t like this at all. She wasn’t smiling, she wasn’t looking at him… he wasn’t sure she was even looking out of the porthole. She was just… there. 

Before he knew really what he was doing, Luffy had crossed the small room and stood at Nami’s back. She shook again, feeling the heat from him so near, but she did not turn or make mention of it. Luffy’s hand came up, brushing the light strands of her hair away from her neck. He could not see the wound, and she was glad that he couldn’t, because she did not know how to explain the bite mark to Luffy – of all people on the ship – to her captain! 

“Nami.” 

Her whole body trembled at his voice, the soft low rumble of anger underneath concern – deep loathing for whomever it was that had hurt her. She knew they would be three dead bodies bloated in the sea to be picked clean by hungry fish if Luffy ever found out who they were – but she didn’t even know their names. Maybe that made it easier for her – she didn’t really know. It had never really been an issue before in her ‘be fucked’ - ‘be hurt’ - ‘get over it’ - ‘be fucked again’ life.  
But Luffy didn’t say anything further. He did not ask who did this, he did not offer vengeance or platitudes. Instead he slowly leaned forward until his chest was against her shoulder, his belly to her lower back, and both arms slid tenderly around her waist. She gasped at the touch, but instead of pulling forward and away, she leaned back into him, allowing Luffy’s heat to mingle with her own, and her bruises to burn. New tears gathered in her eyes and fell onto the rubber man’s forearms. 

“Don’t cry.” He cooed, making small soft circles on Nami’s belly, coaxing and calming her hitching breathing as she hung in his arms and wept. She didn’t even know why she was crying. This was normal! All of this she had done before! What was wrong with her?! Why was she suddenly so weak and helpless and crying?! She hadn’t cried for years, and now suddenly, ever since she had met this man – this little boy who made bright eyes at everything he saw, and smiled because he was actually happy – ever since she had been exposed to him she had been able to laugh and cry like she hadn’t for nearly a decade. And now that it had started, it seemed it would never stop. Nami wound her own arms around her captain’s. It was all she could do.


	3. Loss of Consciousness

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I do not own One Piece, rights belong to Oda. 
> 
> K... seems I may be incapable of writing short fics lol might be 6 chapters by the end, but I'm really hoping to keep it under 10.

“Where did you pick up such a weird fish?” Zoro asked, eyeing the elephant tuna, with its large flappy ears and four foot snout. It had a speckled belly flaked with tiny white and silver scales while otherwise its body was leathery-smooth and navy colored – similar to a dolphin. The eyes of the fish were large, about the size of the man’s fist, one vacant black pupil staring blankly upwards. It smelled like a tuna, or maybe salted carp.

“I won it!” The cook stated with a grin, twirling one of his precious knives – a long slender thing best used to fillet with precision and grace. 

Usopp huffed, lowering the last barrel of wine down to the sandy ground with a *flump before wiping his forehead on the back his striped wristband. “In that All East Blue Cooking Contest, right? I saw the banners for it hung up all over the place. Didn’t know you’d entered.” 

The cook’s eyes misted over, and he brought both hands to his chest. One black-clad leg swung back, his face a picture of perverted rapture. “Ah!” he sighed, implications of brightly colored hearts swimming about the air around his blonde head. “I would have passed it by, because competing in cooking is no reward at all, but for the beauty of this rare morsel!” 

Usopp stared. 

“Ooooi!” 

The three nakama turned to see Luffy leaning on his arms on Merry’s deck, his face stony and unsmiling – quite an odd sight to see, for all of them. Even when their captain was in the heat of battle the rubber man usually retained an ire of twitchy anticipation and badly concealed excitement, or when he had the misfortune of being caught with a blow – a look of pain. But this semi-volatile seriousness was something new, and it unnerved the hell out of them. 

“Luffy!” Sanji called, hitching a smile onto his face in an attempt at normalcy. “Got something good to cook up for us tonight! Something to cheer Nami-swan after her ordeal!” 

If the cook had imagined a reaction from his younger captain, it certainly would not have been the one he received. At the mention of their redheaded navigator, Luffy’s black brows contracted, accentuating the scar under his left eye darkly. “Zoro.” He growled, and for the distance the swordsman was surprised at the volume of that profound anger. 

“Aye? What is it, Captain?” 

Luffy’s arm swung down out of sight. A moment later a rope ladder rattled against the hull of their ship. “I want a word.” 

A drop of sweat slid down the end of Usopp’s long tanned nose, falling into the sand when he chanced a quivering sidelong glance at the green haired first mate. Sanji’s smile flitted and failed as all the color drained from his face. “What the hell, Moss Head?” he hissed. 

“Now!” Luffy called, turning about so that his back was turned towards them. 

Zoro did not spare a moment for either of his now speechless nakama to make question before his feet carried him forward. Placing both hands on the thick rope, he pulled himself up rung by rung. Luffy stood on the upper deck beside Merry’s figurehead, his arms crossed with shoulders slightly raised. His straw hat rustling slightly in the warm wind that smelled of brine. Overhead gulls called to one another, diving for small fish or to wet sandy feathers in blue spray.  
The swordsman rested his arm against the pommels of the three katana at his hip as he approached, but Luffy did not turn towards him, only remained where he was – eyes cast out over the horizon. Towards the Grand Line, far away.

“Nami.” Luffy choked out, barely a whisper, and the sound of it was nearly lost for the crashing of silver swells lapping against Merry’s hull. “Did Nami say who hurt her?” he asked. 

Zoro considered Luffy, taking in the younger man’s constricted figure, fingers gripping hard into either forearm with such rigidity that each knuckle appeared white, stretched – as was usual, he always stretched, even when he was holding still. But there was something about the rigor of his stance that spoke volumes to Zoro. Luffy’s toes were curled in his sandals, jaw set forward in a hard line. Up until now his captain had never appeared anything but childish to the first mate. Up until this moment. There had been no reason for him to be anything else, not even when he was protecting the innocence of Usopp’s village, or when he won Nami’s freedom, not even when he had attacked the marines when the two of them had first met. 

“She asked that I not tell you.” 

Luffy spun with such speed that Zoro was surprised to find himself nose to nose with his captain, trademark straw hat flying from his head to land with a soft sound onto the deck. There was a hand fisted in the larger man’s white shirt, his captain’s barred teeth glinting fearsome under the sun, as if he were about to tear into the other man’s throat, and he growled. 

The swordsman’s instincts were to draw his weapons. To break the contact, and step back. Put some space between them. But he would not do this. He was the first mate, and Luffy – for all his oddity or idiocy, was his captain and nakama. 

Long heavy heartbeats thudded between them, Luffy’s breath coming in sharp painful bursts as his fingers clenched and unclenched where they were wound up in course bleached fabric. Zoro could hear a few fibers tear before he was released, his captain bringing both hands to his own head and pulling at black locks while air pushed in and out of his body through grinding white teeth. He let out a sound somewhere between a curse and a scream as he pulled. When his hands came away, several strands of raven colored hair flitted down onto the deck. 

** 

Nami’s head hurt. It had been a long time since she had cried like that… cried until her throat was raw and her chest hurt. Until her arms shook with numbness and she hung like a dead thing in someone else’s arms. Nojiko had been the one to hold her before. The day that their foster mother had been killed. Nami had been eight years old, back then. Nojiko had been twelve. The taste of Bell’mere’s blood on the air something that she will never forget, even now.  
Golden eyes fell onto the one picture that had been left to her, a copy of it back in Cocoyashi Village with her sister. It showed Nami as she had been, all those years ago – back when she used to dress in her sister’s hand-me-downs, and steal books and get caught by the village elders. Genzo was one of those, a retired marine officer who had taken it upon himself to be just as much of an uncle as Bell’mere had been her mother.  
Wiping another tear from her face, Nami plucks up the picture frame, holding it to her heart as she tries to regain some control over her ragged breathing. She could not break down. The crew wouldn’t be able to afford that! That, and she really didn’t want to explain what had happened to her, though Zoro probably had some clue… Or maybe he didn’t… he was pretty clueless… Nami cast the last of her tears aside and stood up. She would not hide indoors when she was fine. And she was fine! She repeated inside the confines of her mind. Over and over. 

“Everything is fine!” 

**

“Oi, Sanji.” Usopp had his back against a wine barrel, messing with the dials on his new goggles while the Strawhat cook busied himself with slicing lovingly through the pale fleshy fat and dense meat of his exotic ingredient. 

“What is it, Nose?” 

With both hands directing the range and focus of his eye pieces, the Strawhat sniper leaned forward. “There’s a ship anchored…” He paused before ripping up both lenses. “Did you just call me ‘Nose’, asshole?!” 

Sanji wiped his long knife on a clean towel he had draped over his arm, reaching back towards the Elephant Tuna to grasp the long trunk, trying to decide how best to slice, when he heard the tell tail *bang and low *whistle of cannon fire. 

**

Luffy’s head shot up and back, just as Zoro turned, the *bang startling them both. The horror of the shot aimed right for the spot Sanji and Usopp were standing seared into both of them. Luffy saw red. More enemies aiming to hurt his nakama. 

“Gumu Gumu no Fussen!” 

His hand had hardly pushed off from Merry’s railing, propelling him forward into the path of the oncoming iron projectile, but he caught it! Caught it before it made contact with the beach and explode. There would be no shrapnel, no powder ignition. Luffy waited for the force of the shot to sink into his expanded gut, squeezing his lips closed to hold in air until his rubbery body lurched outward. The cannon ball shot far to the side, out into open ocean where it disappeared harmlessly beneath the surf. 

Zoro appeared at Luffy’s side, holding his captain's straw hat in one hand, white katana in the other. Sanji was breathing hard, backed all the way up against the make-shift table where he’d been busy gutting and cleaning. Usopp had fallen clean over, back and shoulders in the sand, his face stretched in terror. 

“Who is it?!” Luffy wheeled around, facing the direction the shot at come from, but he could only see a dark shape at the end of the beach.

“Aye, Boys!” Usopp shrieked as a hand came down into his overalls, picking him up out of the sand and pinning him against a hard chest. The cold muzzle of a pistol met his left temple and he froze. “Looks like we got ourselves some live‘uns here ‘eh?!” 

Luffy’s hands balled into fists at his sides. Half a dozen dirty men appearing one by one out of the dense foliage a few feet from where they had unloaded for the evening. Usopp stared back at his captain with wide, fearful eyes, but knew better than to struggle. 

“That’s a nice ship you got there!” the captain, apparently, sneered, showing a mouthful of rotting yellow teeth. “All stocked up and ready to go.” He continued, looking around at the barrels and crates. “Too much for a couple of kids to handle, don’t you think? We’ll be taking it off your hands now.” 

Luffy’s nerves, already stretched farther than even a rubber man can take, snapped. “Let Usopp go!” he shouted, “And we’ll let you walk away!” 

Laughter. Brash, loud, jarring laughter that grated at their ears. “Did you hear that, Boys?!” the dirty captain shook the Strawhat sniper, wrenching back both wrists until two loud wet pops rent the air – and the long nosed man cried out. 

Zoro knew why. He’d heard enough shoulders being dislocated to know the sound of it. 

“Weapons!” the captain shouted, shoving Usopp to his knees in the sand and drawing back the hammer of his pistol. “Now!” 

Luffy’s fingers twitched, a vein fluttering just above his right eye. Sanji threw down his fillet knife before raising both hands into the air with a scowl. “Shitty bastards.” He breathed. Zoro was next, tossing first his white katana, then the two he had at his hip, onto the beach. One of the enemies came forward to gather them up, retreating back to his fellows cackling like a diseased hyena. It made the swordsman sick to see Kuina’s blade in their hands. He was going to gut them for that! 

“Let him go!” Luffy snarled. 

The enemy captain sniggered, pushing his captive forward into the sand and stomping down hard on his back. Usopp remained still, and Zoro wondered if he had passed out from the pain of having both shoulder joints out of socket. It pinched the blood flow, and if they weren’t careful he could lose the use of his arms permanently. 

“You’re a Devil Fruit user, ain’tcha?” The captain of these filthy pirates jeered, evil leer on his face. “Get you back! Into the water with you!” 

**

Nami had dried her tears, had dressed and washed her face. She couldn’t stay on the ship forever. She was a pirate now! A real one, not just pretending! And not just a pirate, but a *navigator. Something she had dreamed of becoming since before she could remember. A smile pulled at the corners of her lips. How could she stay in her room and sulk? Zoro might take the helm and they’d circle East Blue for the rest of their lives, then Luffy’d never get to go to the Grand Line. 

She laughed out loud, imagining it, slipping her arms carefully through the arms of her t-shirt. Some of the bruises were still visible, but it wasn’t as if they were open wounds. They would fade. Sanji would fawn over her… she supposed she could put up with that. The sunshine would do her good, and she could sit on the beach and listen to Usopp ramble on about this or that… Luffy’s face wouldn’t be pinched anymore, and he’d really smile – would be back to eating everything in sight, and laugh and laugh. She would make sure he actually meant it this time. She just had to get herself out above deck where she belonged. 

Nami’s heeled sandals tapped on the wooden planks as she crossed the storeroom and turned the handle. Time to get back to laughing with her nakama from the bottom of her heart, not sulking about the ‘work’ she’d picked up in some port town they’d more than likely never return to again. Sunlight washed over her, a warm salty breeze pushing at red locks, and the sea spoke in little blue whispers accented with singing seagulls… 

“Raharharhar!” 

Two things fell into Nami like hot irons. The first was that laugh, the second, was a shot followed by Luffy’s screaming. 

Nami ran to the railing, stopping just short of toppling over the side. Usopp was face down in the sand in front of a man in dark clothing, dirty face with a hooked nose, yellow teeth… but it was his laughter that went into her like a knife. It was him! The ‘Boss’ who had purchased her three days before. 

“You bastards!” Luffy’s elbow flung back before thrusting forward, and it was then that Nami saw Zoro’s green hair in the sand not far away – red blossoming across his left shoulder, the fingers of his right hand digging into his own flesh. 

Sanji’s blonde hair flashed as he darted out from behind the table he had been standing at, lurching into a handstand to kick down three of opponents. “I’ll be taking these.” he simpered, snatching Zoro’s three katana that had been dropped by one of the men he had downed. He had just regained his upright balance when he found himself nose to barrel with the captain’s gun. 

“Wrong move.” Laughed the yellow smile in front of the cook. “Pity you didn’t use your only chance to regain your own weapons!” He pulled back the hammer, but before Sanji knew what had happened he had been thrown backwards into the ferns, his head connecting with the solid surface of a palm and he’s seeing stars. 

Luffy took the bullet intended for Sanji, allowing the iron ball to dig into his neck, stretching backwards and then seeming to hover motionless. Straw hat tipped down briefly to hide the slight discomfort of the iron ball pushing aside his rubber veins and tendons, and with a glare forward the ball bounces back, disappearing into the jungle. 

The look on the dirty captain’s face might have been funny, had it been any other day. Except that it wasn’t. Luffy let out a yell as he started forward, swinging his right arm back for a pistol-shot to the man’s gut. He’d break ribs and puncture a lung, maybe, that would be fine by him, to leave this damn bastard in the sand bleeding internally while he dealt with the rest of them. After that he’d get his nakama away from this island as fast as possible. Usopp still hadn’t moved; and Zoro was panting, bleeding and on his knees. Sanji was in a heap at the edge of the jungle. These damn bastards! 

*Sssk!

Luffy’s neck burned, like he’d been stung. All the sudden his arms are on fire, his insides turning over and over. He’s light headed. His feet sliding on the fine white sand beneath him. He’s falling forward. The last thing he sees is the Going Merry, gentle swells lapping up against the planks of his ship, and his navigator – standing at the white rail. Nami’s auburn hair tosses in the breeze with a blue sky behind… she has tears in her eyes… oh no… no… Nami…


	4. No Way Out

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I do not own One Piece. All right belong to Oda.

“Smoker-san.” Tashigi’s hands grasped firmly to the railing as the pitch of the ship changed once again on sweeping blue swells. Bits and pieces of debris chunking against the hull of the marine cruiser in a nausea inducing rhythm. Her stomach rolled with it, bile threatening to slip free between slightly parted lips. For some reason, the young marine swords-woman had never been assigned duty aboard an actual ship, and her first experience of it over the last few days was one of agony and revulsion. 

“Billy the Orca Killer.” Repeated Smoker, both cigars waggling between his teeth, a plume of thick acrid smoke wafting up around his head. He shuffled the wanted posters in his hands. “He’s nothing. Worth three million beli, but since he’s been sighted in this area the higher-ups want us to apprehend him.” His glower sent several lower ranking officers scuttling to the lower decks, not wanting to be anywhere near their often volatile commanding officer. “Shit-eating paper-pushers at Marineford have nothing better to do than to order me around.” 

“We could have-” the young woman put a hand over her mouth, clamping her teeth and leaving the reprimand to her superior officer unvoiced. They had been lucky to escape court martial, after abandoning their posts to chase after the Strawhat Pirates. Even if the fairly small crew had been deemed ‘Most Wanted’ in East Blue.

Pushing away from the railing, Smoker cast an appraising eye over the crew he had managed to procure in Loguetown. A scant few had been eager to disobey orders and set out to sea. Many had families on the island, others were more than content at the easy life the tamed town. Those that had signed on were uprising rookies looking forward to the opportunity to attain fame, though of course they lacked any real experience. The captain shook his head, a wash of salty spray ghosting across his face. Perhaps it was best for this crew to bring in a three million bounty-head – before setting sights on the Strawhats, whose captain was worth thirty million. It was an unprecedented amount, especially in East Blue – the Weakest of all Seas. 

“Have our navigations officers plot a course east for the Yes Pirates’ home base.” The smoke-man sighed. “We’ll bring in Billy, then get back to tracking down Strawhat Luffy. That is if he hasn’t already taken sail to the Grand Line by then.” He added with a scowl, turning for the peace of his quiet cabin.

Tashigi nodded, hand still clutched over pale lips. She hoped she’d get used to the sway of the sea soon, or it would be a long, very long journey ahead. 

~  
Usopp awoke slowly. His entire upper body seeming to be on fire, and his hands – each finger numb, but for the sensation of pins and needles radiating at the very tips where his fingernails dug deep into warm sand. He could hear nothing except the slow sawing of the sea. Even the birds were quiet. 

A low moan escaped the Strawhat sniper as he pushed his knees up under his belly in an attempt to rise from the ground. The motion was ill considered, however, when both his shoulders slumped in an unnatural way and a fresh wave of dizziness warped behind itching eyes. Tears gathered and fell, and he bit down hard on his tongue to stop himself screaming. 

“Don’t move.” 

Zoro? Usopp turned his head, neck only slightly stiff in protest, to find the green haired first mate only a stone’s throw away. The swordsman’s earrings were splattered with blood, the red congealing liquid sticking to his once white shirt. There was only a small part of it not covered in the precious bodily fluid. He was busy digging his fingers into his lap, and Usopp had to crane further to see them buried up to the second knuckle in his own flesh. 

“What are you…?” the younger man began, but cut himself short with a wet gasp when the swordsman ripped his hand free. Between his index finger and thumb, covered in bits of flesh and blood, was a metal pellet, jagged and faintly glinting in the sun. Zoro threw the offending projectile into the sand, instantly shoving his bloody fingers into the shoulder of his opposite side, just above his collar bone. Sweat poured off him in rivers, breathing deeply with his eyes closed as he searched blindly for the next shard of metal to rid it from his body. 

The sound of violent and painful vomiting reached Usopp’s ears, and he wriggled until he was facing away from the first mate towards where this new sound was coming from. His own stomach turning over as he caught sight of Sanji’s blonde head, both arms supporting their red-vested captain slumped over his own knees gasping for breath. Luffy’s dry heaves shook his rubber body, his own arms wrapped around and around his convulsing belly as he choked and wheezed, crying out with a helpless sob in his cook’s arms. 

“Get it up, Captain.” Sanji encouraged, just as the raven haired boy drew in a long unsteady breath. The cook was sporting a few cuts on his hands, but his face was turned away from Usopp, and he was unable to see the fine black bruise across his forehead. He’d covered it with his blonde fringe anyway, no need to worry the others. No. Not when the real worry was Merry, and Nami. Both their precious nakama missing from the shoreline. 

Zoro screamed as he ripped shrapnel from his bleeding shoulder. It was the last of it, but by digging his fingers in he had torn the wound, and he bled freely nearly twice as bad as it was before. 

“I told you to wait, Shitty Marimo!” Sanji shouted from where he knelt, keeping their captain from falling face-first into his own hot fluids. He’d pulled the dart from Luffy’s neck. He knew what they had hit him with. Jellyfish sap, watered down – thank the Sea Gods – undiluted venom would have most certainly killed the boy, but as it was, he had simply been rendered unconscious. Sanji had sucked out most of the poison, making his tongue tingle with the unpleasant pang of acid and irony blood. It might take a few days for Luffy to feel normal again, though Sanji wasn’t sure. The captain’s supercharged metabolism might actually be beneficial to him, for a change. They would have to wait and see. 

“Not waiting for you, Love Cook.” Gasped the swordsman, pressing his palm down on the torn hole in his arm in an attempt to hold in what little blood he had left. 

Sanji shook his head, helping the younger man back away from the puddle of sick in front of them and lying him on his side. “Luffy, you hear me yet?” he asked, tapping the side of his captain’s face with the flat of his hand. Luffy batted at the hand, muttering and whimpering as if he were half asleep. Soon he was snoring. The cook elbowed the rubber man hard in the side, and his eyes snapped open. 

“S-sanji?” he croaked, coughing wetly into the sand and nearly inhaling lungfulls of the stuff. He spat and wiped his mouth, trying to sit up, but the cook held him down. 

“Not yet.” The cook admonished, however gently. “You got hit hard, so just rest a second, I’ve got to help Usopp and Shitty Bastard over there.” 

“Ne? Us-Usopp – Zoro?...” Luffy’s eyes slid back in his head for a moment, but then focused hard on his blonde nakama. “Where’s Nami?!” A rubbery fist found its way to the silk necktie around Sanji’s neck and he pulled the slender man down. 

The blonde bit his lip, turning his eyes away, and Luffy understood… She was gone. Hand falling away, the captain curled himself in a ball, willing his head to stop spinning as his guts heaved and caved in around themselves in emptiness. He was so hungry! 

“Alright, Marimo–”

“I’m fine!” Zoro spat, “Help Usopp first.” 

The sniper had resigned himself to lying in the sand quietly during Luffy and Sanji’s conversation, allowing his back to rest limply and his shoulders to simply throb. The cook came to his side and he gave him a weak smile. “Sorry to have to do this to you.” The blonde muttered, and Usopp had some inclination of what was about to happen, pinching his eyes shut as the other man hooked an arm under his chest and lifted him from the ground. 

The feeling was alien to Usopp, having never suffered such a painful injury before. Sure he’d been shot a couple of times, mostly ricochets from his own clumsiness. He’d fallen down hills and gotten pretty scratched up. Got beaten pretty bad in the first pirate battle of his life – but the discomfiture of not one, but two dislocated shoulders? No. He’d never felt that kind of wrongness in his body before, and he cried out when his muscles pulled, bone flopping weakly and stretching tendon that should most certainly *not stretch like that! 

“Breath, Usopp.” Zoro growled, the swordsman’s head tipped back with his eyes closed – trying like hell to stay awake as blood pooled in the sand. Little flecks of black had worked their way into his vision, and it had begun to tunnel. Bad signs. Very bad signs. There were no doctors on this island with transfusion equipment. Hell, there was nobody on this island at all. 

Sanji pulled the sniper to his chest, thin fingers gently probing at bruising joints to assess the damage done. There wasn’t much, and he sighed in relief. “This is going to hurt a lot.” He told Usopp, gripping down first on the man’s left shoulder. “You ready?” 

Usopp bit at his lips, warring into the flesh with his teeth as tears flooded down his face, and he nodded. 

*S’crack!

Usopp screamed as the bone slid back into place, the action rippling hot daggers across his collar bone and into his chest. Sanji held onto that first shoulder as the younger man shook with exhaustion and pain. “Now the other.” Repeating the process, Usopp felt his lip split, and a thick salty wave of blood spills across his tongue. The cook held onto him firmly for a few moments, before Usopp nodded again and he’s carefully lowered by his nakama to the sandy ground. The sniper gasping and cursing with every inch moved, working his hands and fingers as warmth spreads up from the ground into both aching joints. 

Sanji turned towards Zoro, easily the worst out of all of them. Runnels of sweat and blood made tracks on sandy, tanned skin. The swordsman’s head tipped back so that he’s facing skyward. He’s gently weaving, but it didn’t appear he was about to pass out – at least not yet. 

“You with us, Moss Head?” Sanji asked, getting to his feet and making his way over to the other man. 

A low growl was all the response he gets as he gains the blood dampened sand and kneels over his bleeding nakama. Zoro’s hand is pressed over his shoulder wound, staunching the flow there, but his thigh is another story. The musket ball had sunk in deep, hitting bone before it stopped, and by digging it out with his bare hands Zoro had stretched the skin and ripped it, making it at least three times its original size. Blood bubbled up out of the torn flesh, slithering down his legs dotted with thick gloppy clots. His body’s attempt to stop itself from bleeding out. An attempt that was failing. Sanji slipped his necktie from his shirt before ripping a bit off his color and wadding up the fabric. Zoro grunted and ground his teeth when the cook shoved the wad into his gaping wound, winding the tie around and around before tying it securely over the damage. He needed stiches, but all their supplies were aboard their ship, and that was gone. Thin fingers slowly pried Zoro’s hand from his shoulder, a fresh – though sluggish – flow began to seep from the hole, and the cook could see corded muscle tissue that had been cruelly separated by the shot. An inch or so below the torn tissue began the larger and more vicious wound that had been inflicted on the swordsman by Dracule Mihawk – tender, swollen pink flesh pulsating from the renewed aggravation from yet another life-threatening injury. 

Sanji shook his head as he tore an entire sleeve from his dress shirt. “Damn Marimo, you never stop bleeding, don’t you?” continuing to tear the fabric into thinner strips so he can loop them together before winding them around the injured first mate. Zoro scoffs as the blonde works beside him. He’d begun to shake, color rapidly draining from his face. 

“Can it, C-cook.” He studdered. 

Sanji’s fingers noted the clammy heat radiating from the other man, and the slow – yet building clacking of his teeth as he began to shiver. Shock. Zoro was going into shock. “Lay down.” He says, tying off the last knot to hold the make-shift bandage in place. 

“Don’t h-h-ave t-time.”

“You don’t, that’s for sure.” Sanji wrapped an arm around Zoro’s shoulder and pressed him down. It took almost no effort to overpower the swordsman, and that worried the blonde. Once his back was in the sand his breath started to labor, and Sanji became fully aware of the sheer amount of red staining his clothes and the sand all around. How much blood did the bastard have left? How much did human bodies really hold? 

“Sanji.” Usopp had somehow managed to sit up, clutching his aching arms around his body as he peered out to sea. “I can see Merry.” The sniper whispered. “I can still see her.” 

~  
“Run, Nami!!” Zoro shouted from where he knelt bleeding in the sand. The enemy captain had been busy laughing over Luffy’s fallen body, using the opportunity to stomp hard on the back of his neck and shoulders, kicking the boy’s straw hat away. At the sound of the swordsman’s voice he turned, raising his pistol and sending a short range shot into the man’s upper thigh. Nami’s hands flew to her mouth to stifle a scream as blood spurted upwards from the new wound. The larger pirate brought the butt of his pistol down against Zoro's head as he clutched at the new flow of blood. A resounding crack splitting on the air. The green haired man fell onto his side and didn’t move again. 

Was he dead? Nami’s fingers clutched at her cheeks, her throat closing tight as each breath became sharper and more shallow than the one previous. No air wanted to stay in her lungs for long, and shot out quicker than she could draw it in. Usopp was on his face near Zoro – he wasn’t moving either. Luffy a little further up the beach, also not moving. Sanji’s legs were just visible, sticking out from under a leafy fern, lifeless… What? What was happening?! Had her nakama… had all of her nakama, who had defeated every foe they had ever come across… had they all been… killed?

Shaking her head from side to side, Nami almost didn’t hear the course, brutish laughter emanating from the enemy. The captain threw his now-empty pistol into the sand, throwing both arms out to encourage his men forward. His beady, yellow-fringed eyes swiveling onto the ship he would now take, and the woman aboard it. “Raharha! And will you just look at this, lads!” his voice slithered under Nami’s skin like knife. “Ship comes complete with sake and pussy!” He leered. 

Several of the man’s crew licked their lips, fingering knives and swords at their sides. Nami watched them, twitchy fingers and hungry faces. More were slinking out of the dense jungle behind the beach. Two dozen. Maybe more. Her heart hammered, and her neck – still throbbing from the healing wound of teeth in her flesh – crawled. Caught between rape, slavery, and an unforeseeably gruesome death… she turned, intending to run across the deck to dive into the sea. She’d swim! She’d swim to the next island if she had to! Or she’d die trying. That was okay – she could die in the sea, and that would still be better than to remain there in the hands of these pirates! 

“Oh, hey now…” Nami’s heart turned over again, thudding against her ribs with such force that she might shatter herself to pieces. It was one of the two crewmates that had been with the ‘Boss’ in the fuck-house. Big and beefy, broad shoulders bulging with muscle. His hair was tied to the sides of his head in brown pig-tails, face split in a grin that showed rot-patched teeth. “Where do you think you’re going?” 

“Raharhahar!” Laughed the enemy captain. “Hold ‘er there, Packy!” came the man’s order, and two huge hands took hold of each of Nami’s slim wrists, squeezing tight enough to renew the bruising that had just begun to heal. She was lifted off her feet, kicking futilely at the man who held her. “Soon we’ll have some fun.” 

Packy’s answering chortle vibrated through Nami’s bones, and she shook. Quivering from head to toe as the sea continued to whisper, and now she heard it… the Blue speaking of danger and deceit, of warning – only now it was too late to take heed. 

~  
Nami is ten years old. For the better part of two years she’d been confined to the map room high up on the topmost level of the building that had become ‘Her Room’. Arlong was not under any qualms about her loyalty to him. She had none. She hated them all, and only cooperated to maintain her life, and the life of her sister and home village. Not that they knew that – Nami had only told Nojiko of her feelings, and her sister guarded them with her life. The merman had wasted no time in marking the child, the tattoo inked into her skin while she was held down. She cried and screamed, and they laughed at her while she did. He patted himself on the scaled back at his genius of dealing a trade: her home town for one million beli. The brat had no hope of ever attaining such a sum, no matter what she did, and he’d have her drawing maps for them until the day she died. 

“Eh? What was that?” Arlong bent his serrated nose in the direction of one of his crewmen, a Carp Fishman by name of ‘Take’, his grip on the human’s throat not shifting in any slight way as he pinched its airway. 

“The price of each head is accounted for every human in Cocoyashi.” Take repeated, shuffling papers in his hands. All around them were gasping humans, some tearfully begging for his captain to release the one of them that had not paid its life that month. Stupid humans. They knew the rules. 

Slowly the human in Arlong’s grip went limp, limbs twitching slightly and more sluggishly with each second until it hung limp like a rag, and he let the body fall to the ground with a crunching *thump. He turned glassy black eyes onto the crowd surrounding them. A few of the females were clutching their mouths, and the little ones whimpered pitifully. It make the Shark Fishman smile. 

“Be sure to have your tributes ready for our next visit!” he called into the shivering masses of his subjects. “Remember, you’re lives are meaningless! Humans exist under us, for we are a superior race, the heavens granting us supreme rule, and human’s only enough strength to be existent as our servants. Your only role is to provide us with the funds necessary to complete our aims. That is your only concern!” 

Chortling a low gurgle in his throat, Arlong led his comrades from Gosa Village, following the dirt track that led back along endless fields of rice paddies at a leisurely pace towards Arlong Park. Stretching his arms and listening to the wind in the trees, Arlong watched the sky. No matter how long he had been above the wide surf of the sea, the sky would always seem new and wonderful to him. And here he was, an unchallenged King with an island of subjects subservient to him. Ah! Life was good!

As the gates approached, however, the Fishman’s mood was soured by the sight of a human kneeling just outside the compound of Arlong Park. It’s purple hair and blue-black tattoos making it stand out against the pristine white washed walls behind. 

“What do you want, Human?!” Shioyaki’s low rumble broke out as the Fishmen approached. The Salmon Fishman’s wide pink fins fluttering outwards in his annoyance. Arlong chuckled. 

Nojiko remained on her knees, her eyes to the ground as she fought the trembling of her racing heart. “I beg to be allowed to see my sister, Masters.” She gasped, all her effort into speaking clearly. “Nami.” 

Shioyaki, Arlong, Hatchin, and all the others - stared blankly for a few heartbeats before they began to laugh, pointing and guffawing. 

“And what makes you think we’ll let you just walk right in and have a nice long chat?” sniggered the Fishman, wiping a mirthful tear from his eye. 

Nojiko felt her arms trembling under her. “It is her birthday today, Masters.” She choked. “P-please! I have not seen her this last year and three months, s-since she has come to be honored by your employ!” tears fell from the teen girl's eyes, landing onto the dusty ground to evaporate in an instant. 

“Birthday, eh?” Arlong leered. Shioyaki steps to one side to let his captain pass. “And how old is she today, Human?” he asked, bending at the waist with his hands on his hips. 

The young woman felt Arlong’s hot breath ghost dangerously close to the back of her neck. She swallowed hard, expecting at any moment to be struck down and killed. “S-she is ten years old today, Master!” She answered. 

 

Nojiko had been rejected in seeing her sister, told to go home amid ruthless jeers – but she was left unharmed. Arlong had other ideas to him, and decided to gift his subject with her life. She would continue to pay her tribute regardless. Besides, if what she said was true, he might have another source of income to add to the growing mounds of riches that would spur the coming of the Arlong Empire – his ongoing dream to dominate East Blue, and then, the entire world itself! 

Nami’s fingers bled where she gripped the hard wooden surface of her pen, mixing with the sour smelling ink she used to mark one map after another. Little drops of red littered some of the fringes of those maps, but Arlong didn’t seem to care about that, so she had long since stopped trying to hide it. She had just finished measuring and shading the surf channels around a cluster of islands to the north-north-east of the main mass of Conomi when sharp rapping on her door made her heart shiver and she turned about, red hair fanning for the speed of her reaction.

“Nami.” Arlong simpered, ducking under the low inlet. His bulk reached up to brush the ten-foot ceiling, shoulders easily blocking all light that might have dared enter from the open doorway. Each tattooed arm a corded steel rod that brought fear into Nami’s guts, for she had been beaten many times by the Fishman since she came to her position as mapmaker. She shivered now, with a cold dread and terrible longing for freedom all at once. But she swallowed. 

“Yes.” Came her voice, smaller than she liked, but what did it really matter anymore… 

“I hear today is your birthday.” Said the Fishman Captain, an odd grin on his face and twinkle in his eye that Nami distrusted on impact. 

“Y-yes.” She whispered, pen rattling at the edges of its ink bottle. 

“We must celebrate it properly, Nami. You are our nakama, after all.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comments are welcome!


	5. Helpless

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to everyone who've left comments and likes for this fic, it's been a whole lot harder to write than I thought it would be, but I promise it will not be left unfinished - just might be a while between updates. 
> 
> I do not own One Piece. All rights belong to the great and powerful Oda.

She could do nothing. 

She… could do… nothing… 

Sharp strangled sounds escaped Nami’s dry throat. Hoarse, desperate noises that she could not for the life of her keep behind barred teeth. Noises more alike to a suffering animal than a human. 

Not that it mattered. 

No one was coming to save her. 

Sharp stringy rope fibers tore into the pale flesh around each ankle, itching and bleeding. Her toes brushing the deck as she hung there. Nami’s fingers were red and numb for the tightness of the rope restraining her wrists, the only movement allowed to her was to grip desperately at the hard wood beam above her. More rope lashed her elbows to another flat beam just under Merry’s lee sail. The heat was intense, the sun beating down, heedless to the cooking flesh of the young woman. Nami blinks upwards to white flapping sail, billowing with free wind under blue sky – but it was only the memory of freedom that she could smell. The Strawhat sigil stretched and pulled with each movement the canvas, red ribbon on a painted yellow straw hat, set atop a grinning skull and crossed bones. The figure of her sovereignty, standing for blood now; Zoro’s, Usopp’s, Sanji’s… and His. She had seen them all; dead in the sand. 

Brash, resonating glee got caught up in Merry’s sails just then, shaking Nami from the blackness of her thoughts. Deck swimming with beer and broken crates, Sanji’s food stocks defiled and flung about carelessly. More laughter issued from the open galley door where evil men injured Merry. Tears leaked from Nami’s eyes, tears she would have never let fall a year before… but now?

Through swollen eyes, Nami stared powerlessly out to sea. Merry’s figurehead facing away from her, and Part of her finds a tiny bit of happiness in knowing that gentle soul of their ship won’t have to watch what is about to happen. 

~

Luffy’s head felt heavy and hot, spinning lights behind sore eyes. He shut them tight, gasping with a hopeless attempt at stopping it. After a while he began to hear the sound of the sea again, not more than a stone’s throw from where he lay, forehead pressed into warm sand. Both hands fisted the black hair on his head, pulling hard enough to hurt. The Strawhat captain’s stomach flattening inward against itself, and sour acid building behind closed teeth. 

“I can see her.” His sniper says, one hand held up to the green lenses pulled down over one eye, squinting out to sea. 

“How far away?” Sanji asks. Luffy turns, just managing to get his cook and swordsman into view. Sanji kneeling in the sand hugging Zoro to his chest lightly, thin white fingers splayed on their first mate’s bloody shirt. The other hardly even looked conscious anymore. There was red all down Zoro’s front and pooled up around him, staining the sand darkly. Some of it had soaked up into Sanji’s blue suit pants and shirt, coloring them with wrongness. 

Usopp spun the copper dial over his eye before letting that same arm drop to his side. “Half a mile, maybe more.” Says the long nosed man, letting his shoulder rest. It was too far for a shot. Too far even for Luffy to stretch. 

“Shit.” Sanji cursed into Zoro’s shoulder, getting blood on his chin while the other man growled, making a shaky effort to stand before shaking his head. Eyes rolling back in his head so that only the whites were visible. 

“Don’t you… don’t you *dare act like it - it’s over.” He bit at the cook through gasps. Blood bubbling at the corners of grey lips. 

“Shut up, Marimo. You’re almost dead moss anyway!” 

Luffy managed to get himself flipped over in such a way that he’s suddenly sitting, pushing deep throbs of hunger in his guts down, though with far too much discomfort than he’d like. He wraps both arms around his stomach, gripping at the small of his back. “Ahnn, Sanji..” 

“You worried about me, Love Cook?” 

“S-sanji…”

“Who’d be worried about you, oh Precious Vegetable?” 

“SAN-JI!” 

Jerked violently back to the same beach as his captain, Sanji hurries to push Zoro down into the sand with a venomous ‘Stay Down’ glare he hopes makes his point. Luffy’s got his fingers in his ribs like he’ll suddenly pull them off. 

“H-u-n-g-r-y!” The boy grimaces, lurching forward towards the bits and pieces of raw elephant tuna the blonde had been in the middle of preparing when they were attacked. Sanji’s not even able to start shouting at the idiot to stop eating the meat raw before it all suddenly disappears into Luffy’s rubbery maw. 

“Damn it, Luffy!” Sanji’s on his feet again as Luffy doubles up, coughing sand and spit because the discarded fish had been practically caked in it. 

Usopp’s on his feet, though his legs feel rather boneless and empty. His shoulders hurt, and he’s brought both arms around so that he’s lightly hugging himself to keep some of the pressure off. “How are we going to catch them?” he asks of no one. 

Sanji, leaving Luffy to scrape sand from his own tongue, kneels again to place one hand on Zoro’s heaving bloody chest. He doesn’t put it past the crazy, masochistic bastard to just get up and start swimming for their ship. The cook takes a tally around them. It isn’t much… Usopp has his bag, and in it he’s probably got his sting shot, and the special projectiles he makes. They aren’t bad, but it’s not high on efficiency that he’s seen. Sanji has his legs, of course, and he’s broken no bones yet. Not like their green haired bastard. Zoro’s half dead, and his swords are gone, assumedly taken by the enemy’s ugly captain. Luffy is… Sanji’s not sure about Luffy…

“Stand down, Pirates!” 

Usopp couldn’t even bother jumping in fright, and just blinks several times, peering over one aching shoulder. About a dozen clean white-and-blue uniformed men had come spilling out from the forest just behind them. Damn, but he is going to develop a serious case of thick-jungles-are-all-cursed disease… Sanji took his hand slowly from Zoro’s chest, getting out a cigarette and lighting it. He didn’t look it, cool as ever, but his hurtling mind was calculating what, and why, and What-The-Hell! had happened to this ‘quiet-off-the-radar-resort’ Zeff had always claimed this island was! 

“Captain, we’ve captured the pirates!” called one of the soldiers. 

There was a tremor in the navy-man’s voice, and Sanji considered that none of them were any older than he was. Each holding their weapons at a sharp and practiced angle. The blonde could not help but be a little impressed, because order always impressed him. Heavy footfalls followed the soldier’s call, snapping through the underbrush close by, the man making them was still obscured by the foliage. Sanji glances down at Zoro. He’s still conscious? Zoro’s jade eyes were a little cloudy, but he glared back at Sanji as if they weren’t. 

Stubborn motherfucker. 

Sanji’s just returned his attention to the gathering marines when his stomach turns over. 

“Billy the Orca Killer, and subsequent crew of the Yes Pirates…” the slow bored proceedings were being spoken out in a heavy burr that sounded like it had been said in various degrees and forms a thousand times before from the Marine Officer’s lips, but he hadn’t made proper eye contact with the pirates his men had managed to corner. “On authority of Marineford, and the World’s Government, you are hereby arrested on acts of Piracy in these waters of East Blue, and you will… will… 

“Shitty finally.” Sanji huffed as the silver haired man’s words stumbled and then ceased. He tosses his cigarette butt away towards the water. 

Tashigi came up behind her captain, pausing only long enough to realize that none of these men looked like the bounty sheets of the Yes Pirates. Her eyes roving to land upon the green haired man lying in the sand, bloodied and prone. 

“Mugiwara!” Smoker’s teeth flashed. 

Some of the soldiers began to mutter then, their solid stances breaking slightly. Sanji chuckled at the rattling of their weapons. Rookies, eh? “It’s Smoker, isn’t it?” The Strawhat cook called, keeping a hand on Zoro’s bloody shoulder. His nakama’s eyes had flown wide at the name, but he was too weak to stand, too weak to do anything. “Nice to see ya’ again so soon.” Sanji waved, “And the beautiful swordswoman.” He added, touching his own chest lightly with bowed chin. The chill that runs down his spine is a reminder or how he must look right now. One entire sleeve ripped off, tie missing; covered in sand and bruises and blood. Fish blood not outstanding. They all must look a pretty good picture to the marines – they looked fucking beat. 

Smoker wasn’t paying attention to Sanji, other than acknowledging that the blonde appeared to be the least-injured. Instead, he made a line for Luffy, who had collapsed back onto his face after he’d managed to eat and was snoring. Thick fingers pulled at the Strawhat captain, wrenching him up out of the sand and shaking him. “Oi!” Luffy’s eyes rolled slightly, but otherwise he made no conscious actions. 

“You can shake him all day, but it won’t do any good. He’s out. Got poisoned earlier. Guess it’s your lucky day, shithead.” Sanji lit a new cigarette. His nerves building, and he wasn’t sure how he and Usopp were going to get them out of this. The sharpshooter was still watching their ship, way out to sea. Smoker turned to Sanji then, his face a show of dark wrinkles. It looked like he’d been force-fed a sour boot. 

Tashigi came forward, pulling her meitou from her belt, Sanji debated standing in front of her, of shielding his nakama from their captors, though what difference was it going to make now…

Zoro coughed, rattling his torn body before staring up at the woman who reminded him too much of Kuina. “Can’t take a hint, eh?” he said, or rather *gurgled. 

Tashigi didn’t think she heard what he said, even though she actually had. Her eyes darted from the green haired man’s bloody thigh and shoulder to Sanji’s ripped shirt and soaked slacks…

“Where is the Wado Ichimonji, Roronoa Zoro?” 

~

~Sha-ha-ha-ha!~

Arlong’s thick mane of course black hair swayed on either side of his shark’s fin as he turned, closing the door behind him, and Nami heard the lock click. The young girl could not turn her back to the door for a few moments, because the merman could come back. Even after the door is closed and locked. He could still change his mind. Still decide that she was working too slowly, or deserved another reminder of just how superior Fishmen are. That look he had given her, it was the same look he had used when he killed her foster mother. It’s the hungriest, most depraved expression, one she’d been frozen solid by since the first day she saw it. 

~Sha-ha-ha-ha!~

The door had only been closed for a few seconds when the Fishman’s laughter began echoing down the stone stairwell, causing Nami’s breathing to speed up. Breath that she had not realized she had been holding. She was going to get hurt, she knew it… there was nothing good about to take place here. How had Arlong found out it was her birthday? Who had… had something happened?  
The only persons who knew when her birthday might be were her sister, maybe Genzo, a couple other villagers. Had they been tortured into giving them information about her? Had they been killed? 

“Nojiko…” Nami shook all over, head to foot, and the pen she had been holding slips from numb fingers, clacking first on the edge of the desk before falling to the floor. She couldn’t run… couldn’t leave this tower, she hadn’t been able to for over a year. She hadn’t even walked to the lower levels of Arlong Park! She could do nothing, NOTHING! but wait for her ‘nakama’ to collect her. 

~

“Oi, Packy, come check this out!” 

Nami hears the storage room door open and close, followed by a series of heavy thuds and something scraping along the planks. She’s tied up in such a way that the sun is mostly in her eyes, and she can’t turn well enough to really see. The Strawhats had only recently gotten comfortable with the Going Merry, Kaya having loaded the little caravel with anything and everything she thought that Usopp might need on his journey to becoming a brave pirate. 

Nami’s throat squeezes, numb fingers curling. Kaya promised to wait, wait for Usopp to come home, but now… he never would. Maybe if she survived this, she would go back to Syrup village. Maybe she could apologize for his death? Maybe the sweet girl might not hate her for living while her lover died. 

More banging and gruff laughter issues from the direction of the storage room. 

“What are those useless bastards doing?” Nami shivers, eyes flying wide when a thick hand comes around to grasp her neck, cutting off any air from entering her lungs. Sour breath ghosting against her cheek as the Boss, Billy, whispers into her ear. “They’re going to miss out on all the fun.” 

~

A dress was brought to Nami shortly after Arlong had disappeared from her room. The minnow Fishman chuckling under his breath after giving instruction for her to change and await escort down into the pavilion where three long swimming pools connect to the sea. Not that there is an escape that way, the great sea beast Momoo was kept in that bay just in front of Arlong Park. Part Sea King, part Fishman, Momoo was an indentured servant of Arlong’s, just as Nami was. Though that didn’t make the beast any less threatening. Her first attempt at swimming away was met with her nearly being eaten. After that attempt, Nami had been forbidden to leave the tower room, and was why she hadn’t seen anything besides the four walls of that prison in over a year. 

Without a knock, the brass handle on Nami’s door rattled. Hatchin, one of Arlong’s officers, entered into her room. The octopus Fishman grinning, shocks of white hair sticking up like a starfish from his head. “Happy Birthday, Nami.” 

His eyes told her everything. 

Everything she didn’t want to know. 

~

“Sto- nn! Nmm-!” 

“Tie it good and tight, Grass!” Boss Billy simpered, a big hand on each of Nami’s knees as she wriggled. 

A gag of wet leather slipped between her teeth, holding her hair down at the back of her neck. The sun would tighten it as the material dried, not that it wasn’t already painful against her cheeks now, cutting into the corners of her mouth. She kept her eyes open, watching in horror as the Yes Pirates formed a tight circle around their toy. Many of them already had their pants down around their ankles, working themselves hard while their captain got to work cutting her clothes off, using Zoro’s white katana. 

“NNnnn!” Nami’s mouth filled with acid as more and more of her skin became exposed to open air, shivering when a drift of salty sea-spray kicked up over the railing – the Blue reaching out for her. 

“Got ourselves a feisty one, eh, Boss?” 

Nami’s skin prickled in protest to Koze’s long yellow tongue trailing up her spine, stopping to bite down hard at the nape of her neck. Searing pressure of broken, jagged teeth sinking in, warring and sucking. A further muffled cry escapes from Nami’s throat, spit dribbling down her chin when skin breaks, and a warm flow of what could only be blood leaked sluggishly down her left shoulder blade to stain Merry’s deck with red. 

“Same some for us, you prick!” shouted one of the crewmen, shoving their purple haired mate into the railing. 

“Steady on now, Boys!” Boss Billy barked, sliding Wado Ichimonji’s dull edge under the last shreds of material that protected Nami, slicing them away and depositing them carelessly onto the deck. “Trust us, there’s plenty of this little slut to go around.” 

~

Luffy could not recall being cuffed in Sea Stone, nor being lifted bodily from the white sandy beach and carried through the jungle. Zoro on a stretcher, Sanji and Usopp walking cautiously between loaded weapons pointed at their hearts. 

Nami. 

It was the sound of the sea. 

When had they gone back out to sea? 

Merry?

~

A line had formed around the deck, grinning faces with dark malevolent eyes quirked at the piece of meat they’d soon burry themselves in. Each would take a turn, of that Nami was sure. Boss Billy directed the proceedings, moving her from the main mast beam onto the table. It was the galley table. The Yes Pirates had ripped it from its bolts and moved it out on deck. Ropes were thrown across the table after she was placed upon it, secured with tight knots to each ankle and wrist, knee and elbow, Nami was spread wide and bent only slightly back so that all of her was so very…. Accessible

‘No!’ She screamed inside her head. ‘Please, no!’ 

Tears prickled at the corners of her eyes, burning hot lines down each cheek. Teeth biting down into the stretched leather pressing against her tongue. The wind was chilly on her exposed nipples, perking them into little red hills. 

“Look at this little cum slut!” laughed Boss Billy. One rough hand gripping Nami’s chin between thumb and forefinger. He shook her, and her eyes fell away from the sky towards the enemy crew all standing around in that tight circle. Their eyes bore into her, hands on their own cocks, pumping, panting themselves into a frenzy. 

A shadowy figure stepped in front of the sun, hairy arms smelling of cheap gunpowder and bad beer landing on either side of Nami’s head. The man leaned forward, enveloping the wind-beaten numb of Nami’s left breast. He bit down, hard, hard enough that a shot of fire raced through the young woman’s chest and she wriggled, screaming through the dried bit of leather until she tasted blood and had no air left in her lungs. She gulped for breath, nostrils flaring in effort to take in expensive oxygen when she was ruthlessly entered. An engorged prick with three studded piercings crisscrossing at the head. The metal scraped along her insides, tearing deep gashes that bled on the inside. Red seeping from the fresh cuts, providing a crimson lubricant for her otherwise dry hole. 

“Ah, Boss, you’re right, she’s tight!” Reeking breath fell over Nami’s face, stinging her sinuses and making her stomach turn over and over. 

“Oi! Her ass if free, somebody come fill it!” 

Boss Billy chuckled as another of his Boys came forward, slapping their comrade forward so that he could squat just behind. Nami’s eyes clinched shut as the first pirate breathed rotten decay onto her face, while at the same time trying to ignore the sharp invasion that ripped at the layered muscles of her anus. 

“Fuck’er good, Boys!” Jeered the Boss, fingers twisting at Nami’s right nipple, pulling the already purpled skin hard enough to bruise. He watched his boys enjoying their new toy with his chin on her shoulder. His own cock swelling, wetting at the material that kept it hidden from view. Billy rubbed the bulge against Nami’s tear-wet cheek. Grunting and groaning in time with his Boys’ violent thrusts. 

The Blue tossed about, lapping forcefully at Merry’s planks, washing up onto the railings and across the deck. But there was nothing the little swells of angry ocean could do to stop this. Nami knew. 

Tears streaking down her face as the first pirate came, spilling his filthy flow inside of her before rolling away for another to take his place. The open wounds inside gaped and bled, and when the next cock is buried inside, Nami wishes she would die. To die, and never feel again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comments are welcome!


	6. Blood and Orders

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I do not own One Piece.

Little cracks appeared on the white-striped-blue ridges of the Marine Den-den, but the little snail doesn’t acknowledge them. Smoker’s had this particular snail a long time and never endured a complaint. Once though, he thought he saw it smirking at him.

 

“Damn it!!”

 

Papers flew from the wide tabletop. Luckily the desk was fastened to the floor, just like the rest of the furniture in that room. With the constant rocking or swaying of the sea there were some things you just can’t trust won’t come flying at you. Tashigi stands beside the closed cabin door. Her commanding officer having just received orders from on high. Orders regarding their new, high bounty prisoners. “Smoker-san.”

 

“Fucking North Blue Swaddle-Fish sucking…” strings of curses from all four Blues followed, and a few Tashigi would guess originated in the Grand Line, as smoker ground his teeth into the butts of his cigars. “Who do they think -? Arrh~!…” Smoker was not a small man. He stood taller than both Zoro and Sanji. Luffy beside him looked like a goddamn kid. An intimidating man, to be most sure. Add in the rasp of a good long relationship with cigars and the Moku-man appeared a veritable beast. He carded thick fingers through grey hair, pinching at his temples as if it might help the throbbing ache just behind each eye.

 

A sharp knock on the cabin door brought the Marine Captain’s hand away from his face. Not completely, but enough to level the trembling new recruit a venomous threat that this better be damned important.

 

The solder in question swallowed hard, paper fluttering in his hand as he raised it to read. “By order of the World Government, East Blue officially grants a state of amnesty to all persons of the crew belonging to Monkey D Luffy.”

 

“What?!” Tashigi’s hand was halfway raised to take the cabled message and read this for herself.

 

“A-also…” He was a brave young man, this new recruit. Smoker wasn’t sure he’d had a one yet look him in the face with news of this nature – not since Tashigi almost took his head off… almost.

 

“Captain Smoker is reminded that his orders are to track down and apprehend the Yes Pirates, and present their captain: Billy the Orca Killer for public execution.” The young man lowered the paper, eyes fixed at some seam of wall and ceiling as the ship rocked. A few pencils rattled against the hand-board on Smoker’s desk, his coffee tipping to one side with the sway of the sea. “Headquarters wishes to reiterate that no changes in orders will be approved until the first task is completed satisfactorily.”  

 

It was no secret to the Marines, exactly who had been apprehended on the white beach that day. No secret that right now four of the most wanted Pirates of East Blue were on board their ship at this very moment. The one of them, Roronoa Zoro… He would have been dead on the ground if someone hadn’t come just when they had – someone with a fully trained medical staff and facility.

 

Tashigi stood at her commanding officer’s side. Meito clutched in her fist. They had not insisted on gagging any of the Strawhats, and the blonde one in particular talked. Talked like venom on a needle, but still talked. Tashigi recalled the red-head that they spoke of. She recalled the look on that man’s face when he came for her on the peer in Loguetown. She brought her eyes forward only after hearing the door to the cabin close. They were alone again, her and her superior officer.

 

Smoker ran a hand up and down his face, red and shiny from frustration at the world he chose to live in. “What do you think?” he asked of Tashigi, closing his eyes and reaching for a fresh cigar. Top right hand pocket, matches… he could light up in his sleep.

 

Rattling metal on metal told the marine that the swordswoman had placed her weapon on the tabletop amid the debris of his rage. A broken compass smashed under a fist, torn chore reports… “We cannot disobey orders.” Tashigi breathed.

 

Smoker nodded. “We will never be allowed to hunt them in East Blue. These are our orders.” A slip of paper never meant so much. “Are you prepared for what this means?”

 

Tashigi’s eyes faded, a hungry darkness in them. She had adapted well to the motions of the sea, no longer hung over the side heaving. She had actually come to enjoy her sea-legs, like a dance she’d learned from the Blue. “The Grand Line.”

 

“Aye.” Smoker threw a spent match into a tray near his elbow. “The higher you climb, the more power smells like shit, but it’s where the best go to do battle.”

 

The two had not looked away.

 

This was not just ‘some assignment’.

 

The Grand Line….

 

**

 

A week after Nami’s tenth birthday party, the girl had refused to eat. A week after that and she was force fed, with whatever means necessary. A week after that and the Fishmen were getting tired of it.

 

“Let her starve.” Take complained, laying down his card. Hatchin counting his own before selecting. “We can get another human to draw the sea charts.”

 

“Don’t talk like it’s some common skill.” Shioyaki’s ace is laid down, and the other two are out of money. “If it were, we’d have picked one up before arriving on this island. Right, Arlong-san?!” he calls to where their illustrious captain is sitting in his high chair like a throne. He’d had a lot of fun in that chair with that little virgin. He’d definitely changed his mind about using humans as recreation.

 

“It would be best if she stayed alive.” Arlong agrees into a webbed hand, tapping one finger against his chin and peering around the pavilion as if an answer will suddenly produce itself.

 

“What about that other human? The one that wanted to see her?”

 

“Ah, sister, right?” Take’s re-dealing – this time they’re playing for duties. “Would mean letting her out though.”

 

“Tricky proposition,” Shioyaki’s scratching at a spot on his chin, licking his teeth. “She’ll try and run away again, Arlong-san. Just you wait.”

 

“Sha-ha-ha! How amusing!” He lowered his strong chin to the palm of his hand while his men enjoyed the good life of royalty, endless grog, and all the comforts they never had at home. Thinking to himself how best to use their little human toy they kept in the tower of Arlong Park.   

 

**

 

Luffy’s eyes were heavy, so heavy he thought they might have been tied behind a blindfold, or glued, or maybe he’s gone BLIND?!?! “Ahhh! Zoro, Sanji, Usopp, Nami!!!!” he shouted, bringing both hands to his face to try and feel if he still had eyeballs. He’s clunked himself in the head, however, with a set of fifteen-pound Kairōseki manacles he didn’t know he’d been wearing.

 

“You should quit that, Captain. You’ll do yourself a head injury.” It was Sanji’s voice, drawling from somewhere in the darkness that pressed in so closely around Luffy. He could hardly hear the cook, feeling that there was an infinity thick layer of black cotton around himself that kept away sound and light and air… and his head! It had been so long a time since he’d felt a hit that hurt, that he’d almost forgotten it.   

 

Luffy let himself settle his back against whatever surface was behind him, which felt like metal. Cold metal. “Sanji?” he chanced to say, his own voice magnified a thousand fold inside his pounding head.

 

“Aye, I’m here, Captain.” Sanji answered.

 

A weight pulled at what had to have been a futon Luffy was laying on. A pair of hands taking hold of his cuffed wrists and guiding them to instead rest on his belly. “Don’t forget about me, Luffy! I’m here too!” Usopp’s admonishments were empty of any said reprimand, the sniper hiding the fact that both of his own shoulders were still sore to air itself.

 

Luffy gasped as the weight of the cuffs pressed down on his lithe torso. He’d never felt so weak. Even rolling over seemed impossible “Z-zoro?” he gasped again, turning his head from side to side, but he couldn’t see anything. “Why’s it so dark.”

 

“Marimo’s not here, and it’s dark because it’s only about two or three in the morning.” Sanji grumbled.

 

“You’ve been asleep for about four days.” Usopp tells Luffy, pressing a hand down into his captain’s cold palms.

 

Luffy couldn’t think about anything to say to that… he’d missed twenty meals! “W-where’s here? Why’s Zoro not here? Where’s Nami! and Merry! What–!”

 

The futon shifted again, and a slender hand slips down over Luffy’s lips to silence him. “Zoro got hurt on the beach, Luffy. Don’t you remember?” Sanji gently removes his hand, remaining next to his captain’s freezing cold hip. Damn, that had to have something to do with the Kairōseki. The Marine’s ship was cold, but it wasn’t that cold.

 

Luffy’s head lolled in the dark, his cheek brushing against Usopp’s arm as the sniper sat beside him. “Yea. I remember.” He admits. Because now he can remember, all of it. Nami was gone. She’d been taken away. But that didn’t explain how they had come to be on a new ship. He’s sure they’re on a ship. “Where are we?”

 

Sanji’s lighter flicked into life, and the captain is relieved that he can see the little spark. A tiny yellow flame appearing between cupped hands to light the end of his cook’s smoke. After the lighter is flicked way, the glowing cherry remained, bobbing up and down while Sanji explained in detail; everything that had happened to their small crew since the moment Luffy had been shot with the dart. 

 

“Jellyfish Sap takes a while to get out of your system.” Sanji explained. “That’s probably why you’ve been asleep so long.”

 

“The Marines send down a nurse every day to check on you, and yesterday they gave you fluids.”

 

Luffy’s face crinkled in the dark. “Zoro was hurt. ‘ saw… Where’s Zoro?”

 

“Roronoa Zoro is in the infirmary.” A sudden light flared in the dark, lit by a tall man with two cigars dangling from purple lips. A shock of short white-grey bristles on his head, and eyes narrowed to beady slits.

 

Sanji continued to smoke, eyeing the Marine Captain blithely. Usopp did that same. “You’re up early, Captain Smoker.” Said the blonde, showing his teeth as he grins.

 

“Orders.” Smoker grunted, getting out his keys to search blindly for the one that fit this particular cell. He’d gotten his ship quick, but that also meant that he got the keys without tags. It’s been hell trying to get from one end of the ship to the other. Luckily he found the right key fairly quickly. No one spoke as the Marine Officer unlocked the cell and strode inside. Smoker came first to Usopp, undoing his simple steel restraints before giving Sanji the same curtesy.

 

The blonde stared as the metal links of the chain fell away from his wrists. After four days he’d gotten used to how they chafed, and with them gone he ran his own touch over the smoothed skin. Reacquainting himself with his own body. Smoker turned from Sanji to Luffy, squaring his shoulders and gritting his teeth. After he’d removed Luffy’s Kairōseki handcuffs he straightened. “Monkey D Luffy, and crew,” he added, “You have been given pardon to pass through East Blue unhindered by the World’s Government.”

 

Usopp’s nose wobbled from the speed which his head spun ‘round.

 

“Furthermore, as this vessel is charged with the capture of Billy the Orca Killer and the Yes Pirates, and said pirates have taken your ship…”

 

Luffy’s eyes lit up as feeling began coming back to his face and hands. The ringing in his ears fading until he could almost hear every word Smokey was telling him.

 

“… You will be set free upon retrieval of your vessel.” Smoker ground out, a tick going just above his right eye.        

 

Without another word, the Moku-moku Man turned on his booted heals and left the cell. The bared door hanging open, creaking slightly for the sway of the ship.

 

Usopp’s mouth fell open. His lips dry, he turns to Sanji. “It’s a lie!”

 

**

 

Nojiko stood still and numb in the doorway of the house where Bell’mere had raised her and her foster sister Nami. It was her house now, since Bell’mere had been killed two years ago, and Nami had been absorbed into Arlong’s crew. She was only fourteen. She had not seen Nami for over a year, and had begged to be allowed to speak to her, risking her own life. But now she regretted ever going…. Ever trying!

 

Nami’s knees were split and bleeding from their impact with the concrete block that existed right before the door to the house. Hot, red blood seeping across rough rock and into the dirt on either side. She wore a fine dress or bright vibrant orange, finer than either of them had ever been able to afford. Nami had always wanted fine clothes, fine books, fine jewelry… She wanted to be refined even before she knew how to crawl. 

 

“Oh, God… Nami?” Nojiko wraps her arms around her sisters’ little shoulders, the hick and hike of Nami’s breathing punching upwards out of a tight throat. Tears wetted the older’s tattooed collarbone as weak arms clutched at her back. “It’s okay. You’re okay. It’s okay.”

 

It would have been nice for one of them to have believed that.

 

**

 

 “That’s it, now swallow down every drop, your fucking Whore.”

 

Nami’s nose is pinched closed and she can’t breathe. Wet gasps choked with cum. Salty, thick, stinking cum shot from filthy cock shoved in her face. The hot red phallus forces between her teeth, sore jaw opening weakly for the sour spirt to land on her tongue.

 

“Ah! Yea…” Sighs the pirate, yellow eyes fluttering closed as his hips pound forward a few times, milking himself dry with that tight toy throat they’ve all been playing with for about a week. They get lucky a lot, the Yes Pirates. That was why they kept their boss around. Always delivered the goods, their Boss Billy.

 

Once satisfied he’s spend his load, he fists a handful of fiery red hair and wrenches back Nami’s neck. Her body unable to follow because they’ve got her trussed up so well. He watches with renewed arousal, the roll of Nami’s eyes and the stretch in her neck and shoulders. She’d not been allowed to rest since they’d begun. Fucking her one after the other and letting exhaustion keep her pliable. Billy had taken quite a few turns, and now the crew was wont to catch up. A few hairs tear free of Nami’s scalp, caught between the folds of weather-roughened digits. “Ah, Ahh~ Don’t fall asleep yet, little fuck dolly.”

 

Nami’s eyes few wide and she screamed, the back of her thighs straining at the ropes that held her against the table with her ass sticking off the end. Her arms stretched out in front of her with her hands tied at the wrists. She couldn’t see behind her, but she could guess at what kinds of horrible things they were forcing into her body. The Yes Pirates had been through every room on the Going Merry, pillaging and plundering. They’d forced kitchen tools into her, as well as pistol barrels, or inserted knotted rope, spinning and trusting them until she’s either screaming or coming. Then they start all over again. It seemed to be their favorite activity, feeding the fuck dolly. Nami hadn’t been given either food or water while she’d been tied on deck. None. Only cum shot into her mouth from the stinking crewmates so low on the totem pole that they weren’t even given names. At least none that Nami heard more than once or twice, and so of course she couldn’t remember them.

 

Nami allowed her head to fall to the table, relaxing as best she can so that the foreign object inside of her won’t cut or bruise more than it has to. She knows struggling only makes it worse. If she can relax the muscles inside, if she can keep a smooth angle.

 

“Oi, Boss! Looks like she likes it!”

 

“Rah-ha-ha-ha! Well, will you have a look at that.” Nami’s head is forced upwards. A hand around her neck squeezing tightly until she can’t breathe anymore. Her eyes are glassing, and stare forward as she’s cruelly violated. Billy smiles at the bruises blooming up and down her face. The trickle of blood from left nostril. The lips purpling as he deprives her of blood and oxygen. “Looks like we’ll have to try, a little harder.”  

 

**

 

Tashigi’s eyes glittered under the white lights of the infirmary bay. She’s in a chair, hunched forward, Shigure embraced close to her chest. Quiet. She had demanded leave from Captain Smoker to remain in that chair since the very hour Roronoa Zoro had been admitted to their care, but accepted her orders that she be allowed to pick *one watch for every *six watches to be rotated with the two lieutenants on the ship. Reminded that she should feel honored to be considered for such a position, as she was only a Petty Officer under his command.

 

The woman was furious. With only two watches throughout the day, it meant she was allowed one shift every four days. This was the fourth day, and her shift had just begun. five in the morning. She had already checked in with her captain. Already heard the report that they were to let the Strawhats go unharmed and unimpeded. What utter nonsense! She wasn’t going to let Wado Ichimonji continue to suffer in the hands of a filthy, depraved, sadistic…

 

“Petty Officer.”

 

“A-aye.” Tashigi stood from her chair. The doctor they had acquired for this mission was a hard working marine, though one that never met her eyes. She was always looking at her clip board, or the wall, or the patient… anywhere but the person she was speaking to. And she never called anyone by their names, just their rank.

 

“I have received a notification from Captain Smoker that this man is no longer under investigation?” she asked.

 

“That is correct.” Tashigi’s response is quiet, but clear, her back straightening as she resumes her watch over the closed door. On the other side was her prisoner.

 

“I see.” Said the doctor. “Then I am under the assumption that he is no longer of need of a guard?”

 

“Are those your orders?” Tashigi asked.

 

“My orders remain the same, regardless of this man’s rank in the world.” She said, a bit of black hair falling further in front of her eyes. “I only wonder, if you would be best getting the hell out of my infirmary.”

 

Tashigi’s fingers slipped on Shigure’s guard, rattling the beaded green sash as the meito growled.

 

“You see, you’re not needed here.” The doctor concluded, walking past the Petty Officer and entering into the room otherwise restricted to all other Marine personnel. Closing the door behind her, Doctor Koreih pulled her stethoscope from her pocket, walking to the green haired man’s bedside to check his vitals for the morning. Though admitfully, if he can snore like that he’s healthier than she is.

 

The cold metal disk against his skin brings an abrupt, heavy end to those snores for the first time since he’d been brought under her care. The room seeming to darken, shadows filling out with tangible speculation raised and lowered all in one moment. _My, my… What young, what_ untutored _haki._ Thought Doctor Koreih, grinning as she listened to the slow beats of this man’s steadfast heart. After judging that he was in no danger, the doctor considered. Roronoa Zoro had not opened his eyes, but she knew he was awake. _Why the hell not._ She smirked again for the fact that she knew her hands were freezing, before gently bringing the sheet down over Zoro’s beaten torso. The morning air always smarted his flesh and he couldn’t stop the hike of air entering his lungs for the sensation. An action that the doctor watched with amusement before reaching to remove the dressings to change them.

 

“The Strawhat Crew, with a Captain worth thirty million beli.” Koreih spoke into the air, quietly so that her voice would not carry out the door to the woman she’s sure is still there, despite her best efforts. Zoro’s eyes open, because he knows that no matter what it isn’t like it matters that the doctor knows he’s awake. “He’s gonna be the Pirate King, they say. Then there’s a big noise in The Town, like of which nobody ever sees these days.”

 

“I-” The swordsman coughs, rattling his entire body on the bed. The doctor doesn’t move, only waits for the trembling man to regain himself, clearing his throat before he tries again. “I’m not surprised.” He gasps. “He’s a hell of an idiot.”

 

“That was got you like this?” Koreih asks from behind a veil of straight black hair.

 

Zoro’s jade eyes watched the woman as she continued to change his bloody dressings. “Where am I?” he asked.

 

“Marine custody.”

 

“My crew?”

 

“Captain Monkey D Luffy, Sniper Usopp, Chef Sanji, and Swordsman Roronoa Zoro are all currently in custody.”

 

Zoro stared at the woman. Her freezing fingers checking the stich-lines that decorated him. She nodded and began to apply new dressings. “How long have I been here?”

 

“Four days.”

 

Zoro swallowed hard, his eyes cast up at the paneled roof.

 

“Does that bother you?” Asked the doctor as she moved the sheet further down Zoro’s legs.

 

“Oi!” Zoro made a grab for the blanket, suddenly aware of his own internalized modesty.

 

It was a mistake.

 

Koreih’s leg flew high as the cook’s ever did, sliding one lithe calf across his relatively-less-injured left shoulder to drive him down as she continues working as if nothing was going on. “You will be pleased to know that Captain Smoker has sent two pieces of news this morning.” She said, uncovering his lap and down to his knees. “Please do hold still. Which piece of news do you want first?”

 

Zoro eyed the bandage on his thigh, remembering the metal ball wedged into his bone. How he’d worked to get it out, and put his head back on the pillow, looking away as he’s resigned himself to someone else’s care. “Is it good news for bad?”

 

Doctor Koreih carefully loosened the tape securing Zoro’s bandages, lifting them gently to avoid catching any of the stiches that held him together. Even her hears of experience in the field had not yielded any elegance to the marred wound the Strawhat Swordsman had half inflicted on himself.

 

“That may depend on your definition.” 


	7. Rescue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I do not own One Piece or any of its related materials.

Captain Smoker had hardly put his foot down on the main deck of his ship. Just felt the first flecks of cold salty spray on his face under the bright moon over East Blue waters, when suddenly he’s bowled over by the force of a steam engine.

“Luffy, calm down! The Marines aren’t after us anymore!” But Luffy isn’t listening. Snarling, he tries to take a bite out of the marine captain’s right arm, only to wind up coughing on a thick cloud of grey smoke. Smoker arm shoot out, catching the Strawhat Captain’s rubber neck in one gloved hand. He squeezes, pressing one thumb into his captive’s throat until Luffy’s gasping like a fish out of water.

“Something to tell me, Mugiwara Luffy?” There’s a deadly cold in the marine’s voice that says quite clearly he’d love to snap the neck between his fingers. Pity it wouldn’t work.

“Nah-Nami!” gasps the young pirate, kicking sandaled feet. Both hands around the wrist of the hand holding him up off the ground.

“Their missing nakama.” Tashigi supplies to her Captain, standing beside him at attention.

Smoker nods his chin to his subordinate, barring teeth in Luffy’s direction. “When we find your ship, we’ll more than likely recover your missing crewmate.” His hand dissolving into vapor as Smoker drops Luffy to the deck in a tangled heap. Luffy jumps to his feet. “If you would like to refuse the help of the Marines in the recovering of your ship, fine by me.” One thick finger points towards the railing. “You may leave whenever you like.”

Usopp is at Luffy’s back in a flash, waving his hand as if to calm the situation simply by fanning it. “No, no, no, no, no! of course we wish to accept the help of the Marines in finding our ship. We’ll just wait for you over here.” The sniper’s leading his captain a little ways away, explaining with great gesture and accentuation while the other stood stock stiff in front of him, every muscle tense to ripping.

 

“So, you’ve all heard?” Sanji startles in the form of a quick inhale of nicotine. Zoro had come up next to him without his notice. It aggravated the cook, being caught off guard. Being caught off guard by the moss-head?!

“I will never understand how you sneak around with those great big boots on.” He lets out a stream of smoke from pursed lips, admiring the fact that Usopp’s able to move his arms like that so soon after having them reset. “Think we can trust them?” he indicates Smoker and the other marines, he and his young lady officer climbing a set of stairs for what had to be officer’s quarters on the upper decks.

“Is there any other choice?” Zoro’s right hand drifted towards his hip, reaching for Katana that were no longer there. The swordsman growls low in his throat, fisting his fingers over empty air. “Do you think Nami is still alive?”

Sanji finishes smoking his cigarette down to the filter, not caring that some of the fiberglass burns against his tongue before he’s slinging the butt away. Usopp wasn’t jumping around as much, and Luffy, though still stock stiff in his back, at least had unfisted his hands. “She has to be.”

 

~

“Got upped one, Boss!” Koze’s beefy hand held in it a wanted poster for his captain, Billy the Orca Killer.

“They’ve finally learned to recognize real talent, eh?” Grunted Billy, spearing a roasted potato and stuffing it whole into his slobbery face. “I always knew twelve million beli was a more worthy number.”

“It’s three million beli.” Koze points out, lying the poster on his captain’s desk.

Billy grunts, taking a slurp of red wine before letting the bottle’s wet base plunk down on the poster. Crimson liquid seeping into yellow parchment. “Three? Fuckers at the top don’t know what a real pirate is!”

He’s mad, Billy. Surrounded in Merry’s plundered galley by all his booty. He had riches and weapons, sake, meat. He had prestige. He had fought dirty. And _still_. Three million beli?! The big man got up from his chair, overturning a bowl filled with gold coins on the corner of his desk. Round disks flew, flashing in oil lamplight before falling noisily to the floor. Billy’s fists rolled up and he swung wildly, puncturing a barrel of rice that began to spill out across the floor. Koze sat calm in his chair, picking his nails with his dagger while the other man bellowed like a wounded rhino.

Billy’s black eyes landed on his weapons. He always took the best weapons of anyone he’d defeated, and had achieved quiet the collection. Blowing hot air out his nose, the Orca Killer puts both hands in, coming out with one of his newest acquisitions. The crimson scabbard still had Roronoa Zoro’s blood on it, drying in the spaces between black wraps. With a growl, Billy draws the black blade from its rest, sending it screaming down to take the leg off the captain’s own chair. The furniture pieces clatter to the floor amid shimmering gold. The big man puffs air in and out his nose, hand rubbing through black bristle stubble. He throws down his weapon’s scabbard, shouting disjointed obscenities as he pushes his way down into the cargo bay, where the Yes Pirates keep their favorite toy.

 

~

There’s a warm shoulder under Nami’s cheek, arms around her. It’s too loud to hear much of anything, and the wind is blowing so hard. It must be night? Why is it so dark?

“Oi-oi, don’t you be sleeping, bunny.” Teeth sink through the tender flesh over the girls left collarbone, stinging with singing fire. Nami’s eyes fly fully open, golden color sickly looking over red bloodshot sclara. Somehow in between abuse she’d been able to fall into an exhausted coma. Something not providing rest, but something equally precious, providing a reprieve.

Nami was sure she would die here, tied and gagged. Or they might drown her, tie hands and feet and watch as she flounders and sinks into the blue. Tears gather in Nami’s eyes as the pirates laugh all around her. If only life were that merciful. She knew better.

The young girl hung, leaning her head back as a lash whipped open tender flesh at her back. Screaming, Nami gasps, horrified to find she’s being filled. Below her, pounding upwards, and with each thrust his buddy would give another long slick of the whip. Blood trickled down Nami’s molested skin, dripping onto her rapist’s thighs.

“Oi! OUT!” Heavy bangs, and the rending of wooden furniture followed angry shouting, before one long yell made an end to it. The Captain maintaining dominance over his crew, and he smiled wickedly. Billy pointed with his stolen Meito, the sword’s point to Nami’s cheek as he laid cold metal against her face. He comes right up close to where she’s tied to a long beam, “Pretty little thing you are.” He simpers wetly into her cheek. “I never did ask you.” Continues the Orca Killer. “How much did they pay to have a little dolly like you onboard, those Strawhats?”

Nami’s eyes flutter, meaning in the ugly man’s words taking sluggish routs to her brain. “I am a Strawhat.” She uttered, red bangs falling over her eyes. There’s cum dripping from her lips and down her chin, blood seeping between her legs. Bruises and teeth impressions blossomed on each shoulder, and her fresh tattoo had become infected.

Her response hung on the air for only a moment, before the man snorted. Belting out gruesome hilarity before he licks his lips.

 

~

Zoro returned every day to the infirmary to be treated by Doctor Koreih, spending hours away from his nakama, which he preferred because right now his crew were nothing but nerves and worry. Luffy had climbed up the flag support and wound himself up there the first day they were all awake, coming down only to eat. He’s looking for Merry all day, perched up there. Zoro’s even seen his young captain muttering to himself, eyes wind-stung and swollen. Usopp watches the seas all day as well, copper goggle dials spinning as he paces the decks. Sanji, unable to use the marine kitchen, is left with smoking one cigarette after another, binoculars pressed to his face just visible through yellow haze. The Marines were actually an asset to the search, for a change. Smoker sent out at least a dozen boats in different directions for different durations in the effort of collecting any clue as to the whereabouts of the Going Merry. Zoro grinned. Bastard Marine really wants us off his rig.

“Something amusing you, Roronoa Zoro?” asks Doctor Koreih. Having been so lost in thought, Zoro hadn’t been paying attention to the sting of silk thread being drawn slowly through his flesh. He gasps, nearly bringing up a hand to strike the marine doctor. It wouldn’t have mattered of course. The very first day he’d come in for bandage changing he’d tried to strike her out of reflex, and the woman just sidestepped him, flattening his jaw on her work station and nearly cracking his skull open.

So, instead of lashing out, Zoro groans, fighting to force his arms away and down into the bed as the women drug the line further, tying his chest back together where he’d been reinjured. “I was just thinking, how happy-“ he gasps, “Your captain’s going to be, with my captain gone.”

Koreih allowed a rather dark laugh, lips stretched as she ties off the suture line and reaches for the scissors. “I know our chefs will be.”

“You all should feel lucky. Normally he never stops eating…” Zoro’s face slacks, watching the doctor’s dexterous fingers work. Thoughts of Nami surfacing in his mind. Her face right before he lost consciousness on that beach. The look of horror on her face.

Koreih finishes tying down her knot and starts to lay gauze over the red canyon that had been cut into the young man’s chest. “I’m sure you all will be happier, when you are back together.” She’s moved to covering her patient’s chest with courser bandaging, to keep the pressure on his wound.

“We don’t know if she’s even alive.” Zoro confesses, a hand come up and grasping the doctor’s wrist. “If she’s…”

“Hurt?” Koreih supplies. “Dead?” she asks.

Zoro lets the doctor’s hand go. “She’s alive.” He says, like an edict to the universe. “Nami is alive.”

“Keep telling yourself that.” The woman gives Zoro only a shadow of a smile, as if she’s compelled to keep a secret. He doesn’t need to know. “Believe in her.”

 

Zoro, wrapped up in more bandaging than he ever is in clothing, leaves the infirmary to go back to searching for their ship. For six days they’d been at this routine. Smoker keeping them informed of any information, which wasn’t anything so far.

“Still alive then, Marimo?” Sanji hands over a long glass to Zoro. He’s got binoculars up to his face as he’s scanning the horizon.

“Che’ I’ll outlive you, damn bastard.”

“You’d better.”

Zoro had just turned to the opposite side of the ship when the cook spoke. Half a step back and he’s looking over one shoulder towards the blonde. Sanji hasn’t made a move. One leg slug up on the metal railing, smoking his damn cigarette with big black binoculars over his eyes making him look like a bug. He’s ready to respond with appropriate venom when his eyes catch something on the distant horizon, just as the sun began to swing low over the blue… There.

 

~

“ ‘s not fair, Packy!” whines a Yes crewmember. An off-balanced sailor with a barrel chest and toothpick legs. His friends nod vigorously behind him.

Their recreations officer grins with a full set of green teeth. “Sorry boys, you know the rules. Boss gets dibs, you should’a blown your load early.”

Grumbling and curses aside, most of the crew knew this drill, and sake was applied in large quantity to sate some of the crew’s disappointment.  

 

Below deck, Nami shook for cold. Standing naked in the storeroom, the Boss dumps a bucket of icy water over her head. Hair covering her eyes like a sheet, and she gasps.

“I love the way a woman’s skin prickles when it’s cold.” Sloths Billy, one hand sliding behind Nami’s neck. He moves her hair out of her eyes. Water dripping off the end of her nose. “Their nipples go hard,” he says, reaching to grasp one tender bud between crushing fingers. He twists and pulls, drawing a helpless cry from his captive. “That’s right, fucking moan, your redheaded whore.”

Nami’s legs shake for cold, and she wished she could just fall to the floor. Her wrists reminded her she couldn’t, she would just hang, and the pain of it was less if she tried to stand with her legs, so she had to. She had to.

Billy’s bloated hands were on her again. This time to adjust her lower half onto a lean horse, legs on either side of a shaft that kept them spread open. He laughed at her, adjusting the restraints before he leans in close to swipe a sick veiny tongue over her lips. “Feel free to cry out.”

 

~

Smoker ordered his ship in the direction of the speck Zoro had seen. Really it wasn’t enough to confirm it was the Going Merry, other than they hadn’t seen a ship in all this time and Zoro felt sure it was her. Luffy had come down out of the rigging, leaving a crater in the Marines’ decking. It was the first smile Zoro had seen out of his captain since he woke up, not mirthful, but determined, and he was happy to see it. Moving ever closer, though it felt a million years, Usopp overcame his fear and crawled out onto the bow to be first to see if the ship was really their Merry.

It was.

“You _will_ remain on this ship!” Smoker announced jabbing a thick finger into Luffy’s rubbery chest as soon as the sniper had confirmed sighting. But the youthful pirate captain wasn’t listening. Luffy’s eyes locked and focused on Merry’s sail, to the sigil Usopp had painted. As their ship grew nearer, signs of damage became clear. Planks had been ripped up, barrels flung about, some broken. There was no sign of Nami’s fiery hair, though several others could be clearly seen loafing and drinking under the sun. The rubber man’s arms were wound and corded, his whole being vibrating as he barred his teeth.

Zoro knew what was about to happen. He could feel it clear in his mind. One hand fisting in Sanji’s black belt, the swordsman lurches forward to wrap the other around his captain’s waist. Usopp’s just manages to sprint from the bow in time, grabbing onto Zoro’s left leg just before Luffy’s slingshotting them through the open air. His three passengers watching the sea slip by beneath them, until with a flump they collide with Merry’s main sail. The Strawhats fall with a painful thud onto their own deck, immediately met by several dozen boozy sets of eyes.

“Oi-oi, what’s this?” The man’s got boils on his face, and warts on the fingers he’s got wrapped around his revolver. Zoro watches two or three others draw chipped swords from unkempt cloth scabbards.

Luffy is the first to his feet, his eyes of a deep and dangerous ere. “Where’s Nami?” he asks, as if the devil spoke out of him. Some of the pirates exchange a stupid look and a shrug, which did nothing but aggrieve the Strawhat captain.

“M-Merry?!” Usopp’s cry of distress and pain is hardly audible. The boy putting his hands over a shredded banister that had once been smooth and whitewashed.

“Where’s Nami!!” It would be the last time Luffy would ask, and when no answer came – “Gumu gumu no!!” the force of Luffy’s Gatling sends every one of them over the side and into the sea before Sanji could even raise one leg. Breathing fast and hard, Monkey D Luffy’s eyes dart everywhere for his navigator. To the Galley door swinging open on broken hinges, the mast wrapped up with bloody ropes, to the broken glass on deck. To Nami’s Mikan Grove. The tangerine trees had gone without water, leaves turning crisp and yellow when once they had been flushed with green. The fruit has been stripped, some sad orange globes littering the ground or stomped under a boot.

Sanji’s climbing the stairs for the galley, but stops short with his feet in the entryway. Broken dishes and dented pots were all over the floor. His table’s cloth ripped and stained. All of Zoro’s sake was missing, insulting corks without bottles stuck on the coiled prongs of discarded screws. Their table had been dragged to one corner, piled with gold and papers and food. It seemed to be the only thing that wasn’t ruined.

“I-is she?” Usopp peered nervously around Sanji’s hip, taking in what the other had already seen. It brought even more tears to his eyes, and he buried his face with his hands.

Luffy stood in limbo, tired mind racing. She had to be here. Nami had to be here?! Leaning back on his heels, Luffy took in two great lungfulls of free air before belting out the single name of his nakama. Heard as far away as Foosha, if he had known that. The blue trembled to hear his voice.

“Shh, Luffy! Do you hear that?” Zoro knelt to one knee, ear turned towards the deck. There was some sound. Laughter? Crying? Unlikely as that was, it sounded a mixture of both.

Brown eyes narrowing as he also begins to hear noises from the lower compartment, Luffy brings a fist down to punch through.

“Don’t damage our ship, asshole!!” Usopp’s wailing.

Luffy doesn’t hear his sniper. Crunching his knuckles into tender wooden planks until he’s made a hole large enough to see.

 

~

She cried. She screamed. She even begged.

The scent of burnt skin and hair hangs in the breezeless compartment. Boss Billy chuckling as he lights yet another match and holds it close to the girl’s hip. Flames licked her skin, leaving black marks and bubbling flesh. “Squeeze my cock, whore. That’s right. That’s right.” With his rod shoved up inside her, Nami quivered. With each new pain her body reacted, and no matter how she wished it wouldn’t, he would pull more and more out. Bring it to the surface and hurt it. The girl’s eyes roll, so far passed exhaustion that even when she hears someone calling her actual name, she doesn’t register its reality.

A heavy thud makes the hull shake, and the Boss glares upward. “Fucking idiots.” He grunts, leaving the problem to his two first mates. He was busy. Reaching away, he wraps his fingers around the handle of a kettle. He’d filled it with ginger and oil, and now it had begun to boil, was ready to use. Nami eyed the steaming metal spout, grimacing when the huge man drug himself back before slamming in. The force drags her shredded back along the wooden lean horse, and a fresh wave of hot blood coats the surface.

 

*Bang!

      

Light. Sunlight. Nami hadn’t seen it for so long she thought she wouldn’t recognize it again. The white beam falling onto her face, and the breeze that followed so full of salt and sand and life…

 

“The fuck are you bastards doing?” Shouted the Orca Killer, still rutting like a pig in mud into Nami’s bloody cervix. “You’ll get your turn, just plug that hole and shut the fuck up for an hour.”

 

Luffy’s eyes found Nami, his brain a little slower to catch on. When he heard the ugly captain speak, however, he registered the truth of it. Of… it…

With a sling of both rubbery arms he’s reaching into the opening he’d made in their deck, latching all ten fingers around the man’s neck he pulled. The hole widened considerably as the enemy captain’s fat body came tearing out. Pants around his ankles. The sword stuck uncaringly into his leather belt catches on the broken deck and flies free.

Luffy’s eyes are dark and narrowed, his teeth grinding down so hard he might rupture them. With a sideways swing, the Strawhat captain drives the ugly man’s head against the mast, knocking out several teeth and splitting his cheek. The man sputters and curses, spitting blood out before he’s lifted again. Swung the opposite direction the Orca Killer’s back makes contact with Merry’s rail. His lower spine separates, leaving both legs to flop uselessly as he’s again dragged upright. He can see Luffy’s face now, right in front of his own. The kid they’d stolen this ship from.

“Eh? Well,” he spits another tooth between his lips. “Got something to say?” he asks, broken leer not lessened by his bloodied state.

Luffy’s hands were shaking, and he can’t get enough air into his body.

“No?” A face pouting, Billy dribbles more blood onto the deck. “That’s a shame. She had lots to say.”

A noise came out of Luffy, not a word, not even a thought. Just a noise that gave it all away. When the ugly man heard it, he laughed. Guffawing up into the sky with his yellow tongue sticking out. And when Zoro steps up beside his captain to slice the head from its shoulders the eyes continue to roll, madly.

Luffy drops the remains, chest heaving under red vest. Usopp and Sanji both rushing forward. Sanji is first to slide his thin frame into the opening. Feet meeting the ground in a slight squishing noise. He brought his arm up for the smell, blood and salt and pain. Devices of torture glared at him. Clamps and whips. There were so many different kinds of fluid on the floor that he couldn’t let himself think of it. He raised his eyes instead. “Nami-swan.”

She was unconscious. The redhead’s hands tied, fingers purpled while blood seeped out where her bounds were obviously too tight. Her face is swollen, both eyes blackened, and a line of red ran out of her nose. Unsure of where to begin, Sanji took in her simple position. Spread eagle for anyone to see. Gently he moves to wrap an arm around one leg to unhook her from her indecency, but the action jars her exhausted mind back awake. She cries out, wriggling and kicking at the man between her legs. “St-STOP!” blood flies out on the air with her screams, splattering Sanji’s dress shirt and tie. Sanji grappling for her ankles as she kicks.

“It’s alright. It’s alright. Nami, it’s going to be alright.”

The navigator’s gold eyes roll, not able to focus on anything.

“St-stop, please! Just kill me!”

Sanji had seen Nami cry. They’d all seen her cry, and recently. But this was different. It was the cry of a lost lamb taken to slaughter only to be played with by wolves. Behind him, the cook knew the others were making their way down. He looked around and found a ratty, filthy coat, and used it to wrap around his nakama’s nakedness before beginning work freeing her poor hands.

“Nami.” Usopp approaches carefully, eyeing the room that had once been just a cargo hold. Luffy looked over his sniper’s shoulder as the coward made promises of peace and safety to their broken navigator. Whispers that it was all over, and she was alright.

It was one of the few lies Luffy’s ever really heard from the brave warrior of the sea.    

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am really really sorry this took so long to update. But please, please enjoy - it might end in the next chapter, but I don't know yet. :) Luv Ya's!

**Author's Note:**

> **Note on Nami's ‘age’ – Because I keep finding conflicting information I just decided on making Nami 1-2 years old when adopted by Bell’mere, about 8 years old when Bell’mere is shot, and Arlong forces Nami into his crew – 10 when the beginning of the trauma starts (so yes, there is underage stuff in here, if you don’t like it, don’t read it) and around 16-17 when Luffy defeats Arlong.**
> 
> Comments are welcome!


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